Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Oct 26, 2015; 7(10): 695-699
Published online Oct 26, 2015. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v7.i10.695
Percutaneous pulmonary valve implantation in a single artery branch: A preliminary experience
Massimo Chessa, Gianfranco Butera, Luca Giugno, Angelo Micheletti, Diana G Negura, Mario Carminati
Massimo Chessa, Gianfranco Butera, Luca Giugno, Angelo Micheletti, Diana G Negura, Mario Carminati, Pediatric and Adult Congenital Heart Centre, IRCCS-Policlinico San Donato-University Hospital, San Donato Milanese, 20097 Milan, Italy
Author contributions: Chessa M, Butera G and Carminati M designed research; Giugno L, Micheletti A and Negura DG performed research; Giugno L, Micheletti A and Negura DG analyzed data; Chessa M wrote the paper.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment, according with the National Low.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Massimo Chessa, MD, PhD, FSCAI, FESC, Pediatric and Adult Congenital Heart Centre, IRCCS-Policlinico San Donato-University Hospital, via Morandi 30, San Donato Milanese, 20097 Milan, Italy. massimo.chessa@grupposandonato.it
Telephone: +39-2-52774531 Fax: +39-2-52774459
Received: January 29, 2015
Peer-review started: January 30, 2015
First decision: April 27, 2015
Revised: May 29, 2015
Accepted: September 7, 2015
Article in press: September 9, 2015
Published online: October 26, 2015
Abstract

To describe preliminary experience of percutaneous pulmonary valve implantation, in a single pulmonary branch position. Two procedures in 2 patients from a single center are described, where implantation of percutaneous valves within a single pulmonary artery branch was technically successful. The procedural indication was pulmonary valve regurgitation and/or residual stenosis. The 2 patients were symptomatic. An Edwards Sapien™ valve (Patient 1), and a Medtronic Melody™ valve (Patient 2) were implanted. Both pts were discharged with an excellent valve function. In this report it is underlined that this modality is technically feasible and may be considered an option in patients with congenital heart defect under special circumstances.

Keywords: Congenital heart disease, Tetralogy of fallot, Pulmonary atresia, Percutaneous pulmonary valve, Grown-ups with congenital heart diseases

Core tip: Today MelodyVR valve (Medtronic, Minneapolis, MN) and the SAPIENTM transcatheter heart valve valve (Edwards Lifesciences LLC, Irvine, CA) are available to use in patients with a conduit connecting the right ventricle to the main pulmonary arteries (PA). However, given the anatomic variability of the right ventricular outflow tract and the concomitant occurrence of branch PA disease frequently encountered in this patient population, alternative approaches to valve replacement needs to be explored. In order to solve this problem we use a different approach implementing percutaneous pulmonary valve implantation, in a single pulmonary branch position.