ICE guided ASD and PFO device closure

There are a group of individuals who have a so called “hole in the heart” from birth. In a small minority of them, those defects can cause stroke, pulmonary hypertension or heart failure. Beside open heart surgery, percutaneous device closure has been established since more than two decades. However, the traditional way to safely perform this procedure requires general anesthesia, prolonged procedural time and up to three operating physicians.

For the first time, at Mediclinic City Hospital the cathlab team successfully performed percutaneous ASD and PFO device closure under intracardiac echocardiographic (ICE) guidance.

In the past, percutaneous device closure of interatrial communications was done under transesophageal echocardiographic (TEE) guidance which required a second cardiologist to operate the TEE. For the patient, TEE in a supine position is hard to tolerate over a longer period of time and hence would need general anesthesia and in turn would extend the procedure’s expenditure and time.

ICE enables one interventional cardiologist to perform this otherwise well-established therapy, just under local anesthesia in less than fourteen minutes.

In summary, ICE-guidance is capable of updating ASD and PFO device closure towards a fast and patient friendly therapeutic approach.

For more details, please review the publication file below