Capital Pediatric Cardiology

So this was a nice interview, but the things that made Ariel's surgery groundbreaking were cut out. So please allow me to expound: We at Capital Pediatric Cardiology are proud to provide services for Sutter Medical Center. Sutter Medical Center has made the commitment to the community to put all the pieces together to best take care of the children of Northern California. The whole team involves us at CPCA, a comprehensive NICU and PICU team of nurses, doctors, respiratory th...erapists, child life specialists, social workers, etc, etc, and a fantastic surgical team! The Cardiothoracic Surgical team we work with are Stanford surgeons who live and work here in Sacramento. Drs. Nasirov and Watanabe are the surgeons who learned the technique that was able to fix Ariel's heart with a small incision under her right arm rather than having a large incision all the way down the middle of her chest. One of the points that was cut out was the evolution of congenital heart surgery. First, we were mainly concerned with learning how to keep children with certain congenital heart defects alive. Then once those techniques were learned, we tried to do them with the least amount of side effects possible. Now for many things we know how to do great surgeries with fewer side effects, but we are now trying to do things in ways that will allow kids with congenital heart disease to live NORMAL lives. My specialty of Interventional Pediatric Cardiology is fixing certain heart defects by inserting tools into the blood vessels through basically an IV poke. Many times the scars left by these procedures are zero or at least very tiny, and we can avoid needing to stop the heart at all. Most of those procedures are done as same-day procedures, or sometimes require only an overnight observation afterward. This way, kids can get back to normal life with minimal interruption and minimal pain / scarring. Some heart defects, however, need congenital heart surgeons to open the chest, stop the heart briefly, sew things back together, and then start the heart back up. Ariel's heart defect was one of these that needed open heart surgery. Drs. Nasirov and Watanabe, as well as Drs. Frank Hanley and Olaf Reinhartz, are amazing surgeons we have the privilege of working with who are constantly improving upon life-saving techniques. This technique used on Ariel and multiple other children over the past couple of years (which they have employed for ASDs, VSDs, Tetralogy of Fallot, AV canals among others) is amazing, and is allowing these kids to get back to their new and improved lives quicker, with fewer side effects, and to be able to hide their scars if they want to. The technique is called a right mini thoracotomy, and is a 2-3 inch incision underneath the right armpit that heals very nicely and almost looks like a normal skin line as the children grow. It can be hidden under a swimsuit!

Proud of our program!

It’s a pleasure to work with the Stanford surgeons Drs. Nasirov and Watanabe and also Drs. Hanley and Reinhartz and the entire Congenital Heart Program at Sutter Medical Center who help to take such great care of our / your precious little ones like Ariel!! We are proud to be a part of the awesome and ground-breaking work being done there!!

Twins Holden and Tristan had the large holes in their hearts fixed last week by Dr. Hill! They are only 2 years old, and would have had to undergo open heart surgery any other time and place. However, because Dr. Hill is the first and only doctor in the Greater Sacramento region to use the newly approved Gore Cardioform Septal Occluder device, they are now cured and only had to spend 24 hours in the hospital, and with only a pinpoint scar! Today was their first follow-up and they are doing great! Their parents say they may actually have TOO much energy now. Sorry mom and dad!

It has been 38 years since the first successful Fontan operation on a child with HLHS. Dr. William Norwood completed this essential operation on a child with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a heart defect that was uniformly fatal at the time.

As some of you may know, I have Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF), a heart condition comprised of four congenital cardiac defects. If any of you guys struggle with TOF ...or other heart conditions... It's essential to check up on conditions like this. This is not an ad ... It’s a reminder to my friends out there to be safe and get a check-up. Even though I feel great, I still get regular tests done to make sure everything’s working properly. #CHD #TOF #SpreadAwareness See more

It’s about dang time!

Check out Camp Taylor - an awesome camp for kids with CHD!

Hope to see you at the Courageous Heart Run this Sunday!

We are so excited to share with you the results of a recent study done by Mayo Clinic HLHS This paper is the first report of a first-in-infa...nt FDA-monitored trial of a new stem cell therapy in the treatment of HLHS. We're pleased to report that the results clearly demonstrated that collecting, processing, and injecting an autologous stem cell product from umbilical cord blood is both safe and feasible and has led to us opening a Phase IIb study. The Wanek Family Program for HLHS is grateful to the research participants for their role in this exciting endeavor to help validate new regenerative strategies for patients. This work would not have been possible without the commitment, support, and collaboration of our HLHS Consortium members: OU Medicine, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Children's Minnesota, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Children’s Hospital Colorado, Mayo Clinic, Sisters by Heart, and Ochsner Hospital For Children! Read the entire publication here-> https://connect.mayoclinic.org//phase-i-stem-cell-trial-r/ See more