Surgery on newborns breaks new ground

Press, 19 February 1987, Page 30

Surgery on newborns breaks new ground

PA Auckland Professor Aldo Castenada is breaking new ground by performing complex corrective surgery on newborn babies with congenital heart conditions.

His technique combines life-saving procedures and corrective surgery to fix the defect and prevent later damaging changes to heart, lungs and brain. Such surgery is a world first, but Professor Castenada said early repair techniques were pioneered in New Zealand in the 1960 s by Sir Brian Barratt-Boyes and his team from Green Lane Hospital.

Professor Castenada, head of surgery at Har-

vard Medical School and director of surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital, was a key speaker at the Ninth Asian-Pacific Cardiology Congress in Auckland.

He said, in the past when a child was bora with a congenital defect the idea had been to perform “palliatve” surgery so it would survive.

However, this had secondary effects, damaging to the heart and other organs, and corrective surgery was needed later. “Our philosophy is that we want to avoid these secondary changes. The key is to try and fix the heart lesion at a very early age,” he said. “We are already doing

a number of operations with neo-nates in the first, second and third days of life.”

Professor Castenada said he believed the babies should have a normal life span because the surgery was done so early.

Within a decade he expected most congenital defects would be able to be repaired in the first few days of life. Such a trend, he said, would reduce the need, in many cases, for trans plants later, especially where both heart and lungs were affected.

Professor Castenada believes the concept of early intervention is becoming more popular.