Scimitar Syndrome – New Approach to Treating Unique Disease in the Heart Institute

January, 12, 2021

Patients diagnosed with congenital heart disease scimitar syndrome are born 1 in 1,000,000. This is an extremely rare anomaly. With scimitar syndrome, blood enters only one atrium, which overloads the second part of the heart and complicates the work of the heart. Therefore, the life expectancy of patients with this diagnosis is small. To date, such operations have been performed in Ukraine through the middle thoracic access using artificial circulation.

This year, a new approach to treatment was applied at the Heart Institute for the first time in Ukraine. Victoria, a 33-year-old patient, was admitted to the Heart Institute with the just diagnosed heart defect scimitar syndrome. The team of the Pediatric Department of the Heart Institute including Volodymyr Vashkeba, Dmytro Garbuz, Iryna Galamai, Olga Lastochkina, Lidia Stetsenko, Oksana Adamenko, led by surgeon Vasyl Karpenko, successfully performed surgical treatment of the defect without the use of artificial circulation. The operation was performed through a cosmetic lateral thoracotomy. At present, the patient is feeling well and left the clinic.

 

With this operation, the specialists of the Heart Institute continue to introduce cosmetic accesses in patients with congenital heart defects. The method has significant advantages: it reduces the risk of complications, shortens the rehabilitation period, and in the long run, the results of the cosmetic intervention are much more effective. Routinely in the Pediatric Department of the Heart Institute, cosmetic access is used in the correction of defects like an atrial septal defect, partial abnormal drainage of the pulmonary veins, ventricular septal defects, incomplete atrioventricular communication.