Medtronic freestyle valves in right ventricular outflow tract reconstruction.

Background: Various pulmonary valve substitutes, with their inherent limitations, have been used in children and young adults. We chose the Medtronic Freestyle (Medtronics, Minneapolis, MN) valve because of its excellent hemodynamics, known durability in adults, and design features that allow modifications during implantation.

Methods: Over a 3 1/2 year period the Freestyle valve was implanted in 47 patients age 2 to 58 years (mean 14.

Multidose cardioplegia in a complex arterial switch procedure.

Integrated cardioplegia techniques have gained wide acceptance by surgeons performing adult cardiac surgery, because patients being referred are likely to have poor ventricular function and energy-depleted hearts. In addition, the increasing complexity of available procedures has led to an increased threat of reperfusion injury and calcium contracture ("stone heart") after prolonged ischemia. In this report, we describe the case of a newborn with transposition of the great arteries that survived almost 6 hours of ischemic time and has normal ventricular function postoperatively.