Heart surgery has come a long way since Children's Robert Gross, MD, performed the world's first successful surgical repair of a congenital heart defect. Here, Pedro del Nido, MD, Children's current chief of Cardiac Surgery, discusses his goal of doing these delicate operations while the heart is still beating - using sophisticated new tools and imaging techniques - and avoiding the need for open-heart surgery and cardiopulmonary bypass. Clinical trials of beating-heart closure of atrial septal defects - holes in the wall dividing the two upper chambers of the heart - could begin as early as 2008. Del Nido also discusses the use of robotics in cardiac surgery, which could eventually be integrated with beating-heart techniques.
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