I just got word that my friend, Adam age 6 months, has come out of surgery for Atrioventricular (AV) Canal Defect. This surgery involved cutting open part of his heart.
These two images compare normal and AV canal defect hearts.
In an AV heart, the piece of heart tissue called the Ventricular Septum that separates the left and right halves is missing. Surgery is used to rebuild this missing structure, and also to repair the tricuspid valves which are also misformed.
At first I thought that this defect was in some way related to the foramen ovale. The foramen ovale is a different kind of “hole in the heart”. It is present in the fetus, and serves to allow blood flowing through the heart to bypass the lungs. It is between the left and right atrium (not the ventrical is in Adam’s case). It’s needed because a fetus does not get its oxygen from the lungs — it gets it from the placenta via the umbilical cord. By bypassing the lungs, the fetus is able to redistribute the oxygenated blood more efficiently. At birth, the foramen ovale closes, causing blood flow to be sent to the lungs. If this fails to close, it can result in cyanotic heart disease, in which a newborn turns blue due to lack of oxygenated blood.
Here’s hoping to a speedy recovery for little Adam.
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One reply on “A hole in his heart”
Speedy recovery to little Adam, and thoughts as well to his anxious parents.
I am going to take this to school tomorrow, my 7th graders are studying the circulatory system, it will show them just how lucky they are that their hearts work correctly and what happens if the parts they are learning about have a problem. They will send their good wishes too, I am sure.