Pediatric cardiac interventions: Innovations from India

Abstract

ABSTRACT India, owing to its population structure, faces an enormous burden of children born with congenital heart disease (CHD). Systematic challenges such as limited public health infrastructure, a shortage of trained specialists, and high out-of-pocket expenditures hinder uniform access to comprehensive CHD care. Despite these limitations, Indian pediatric cardiologists have delivered innovative and often cost-effective solutions to challenging clinical problems. Indigenous devices such as the MyVal transcatheter heart valve, Konar-MF (multifunction) occluder, and Zephyr large-diameter stents are significant achievements in their respective fields. Static balloon dilatation of interatrial septum and balloon-assisted atrial septal defect (ASD) device implantation are prime examples of many innovations that were established by Indians and followed across the world. India also helped consolidate significant interventions in children, such as percutaneous transvenous mitral commissurotomy and interventions for aortoarteritis. Notably, Indian centers have published some of the largest series on transcatheter closure of sinus venosus ASD and ruptured sinus of Valsalva aneurysm. Close collaboration with adult coronary interventionalists has facilitated innovations borrowed from coronary chronic total occlusion hardware and techniques to recanalize ductus arteriosus or membranous-type pulmonary atresia. This manuscript discusses some of India’s innovative contributions to the field of pediatric cardiac interventions.