Children's Hospital Boston has been at the forefront of pediatric heart surgery since 1938 when Robert Gross MD, performed the first operation to correct a congenital heart defect. In the years since that groundbreaking procedure, the Cardiac Surgery Department at Children's has grown to become the largest in the United States and one of the foremost in the world. In 2004, patients came from 31 states and 15 countries.
Each year, the Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Program provides surgical care to approximately 1,100 patients, including over 725 cases of open-heart surgery (that require cardiopulmonary bypass), and 400 closed-cases (that do not require bypass), with extraordinary success rates.
New surgical techniques continue to be developed to treat numerous types of congenital heart conditions -- from the simplest abnormality to the most complex for newborns, infants, children, adolescents and adults.
In the News
This week: Surgical team in Ghana
A team of cardiac specialists is providing much-needed surgical care to children with heart defects. Read daily updates.
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