[Interventional catheterization in pediatric cardiology]

Abstract

During the last decades there has been an enormous increase in the use of transcatheter techniques to improve or correct congenital heart lesions. Balloon valvuloplasty and angioplasty, closure of heart defects, foreign body retrieval and ablation of conduction bundles are now available to the pediatric cardiologist. The variety of lesions so treated continues to expand and equipment continues to improve. However therapeutic catheterization techniques should only replace conventional surgery as the initial procedure of choice in lesions for which the results of these interventions are either similar to or better than those reported for the alternative surgical treatment. The purpose of this paper is to present the current state-of-the-art of this exciting new discipline.