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Eileen Saxon, sometimes referred to as "The Blue Baby", was the first patient that received the operation now known as Blalock–Thomas–Taussig shunt. She had a condition called Tetralogy of Fallot, one of the primary congenital defects that lead to blue baby syndrome.
Something the Lord Made is a 2004 American made-for-television biographical drama film about the black cardiac pioneer Vivien Thomas (1910–1985) and his complex and volatile partnership with white surgeon Alfred Blalock (1899–1964), the "Blue Baby doctor" who pioneered modern heart surgery.
The Blalock–Thomas–Taussig shunt (BTT shunt), [1] previously known as the Blalock–Taussig Shunt (BT shunt), [2] is a surgical procedure used to increase blood flow to the lungs in some forms of congenital heart disease [3] such as pulmonary atresia and tetralogy of Fallot, which are common causes of blue baby syndrome. [3]
He created, with assistance from his research and laboratory assistant Vivien Thomas and pediatric cardiologist Helen Taussig, the Blalock–Thomas–Taussig shunt, a surgical procedure to relieve the cyanosis from tetralogy of Fallot. [1] This operation ushered in the modern era of cardiac surgery.
Vivien Theodore Thomas (August 29, 1910 [1] – November 26, 1985) [2] was an American laboratory supervisor who, in the 1940s, played a major role in developing a procedure now called the Blalock–Thomas–Taussig shunt used to treat blue baby syndrome (now known as cyanotic heart disease) along with surgeon Alfred Blalock and cardiologist Helen B. Taussig. [3]
Originally, it was referred to as the Blalock-Taussig shunt: the critical input of Vivien Thomas was overlooked because of his non-clinical role and because of his race. [2] Following extensive experimentation on about 200 dogs, [24] on November 9, 1944, Blalock and Thomas performed the surgery on the first human patient.
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It was actually Helen Taussig who convinced Alfred Blalock that the shunt was going to work. 15-month-old Eileen Saxon was the first person to receive a Blalock–Thomas–Taussig shunt. [63] Furthermore, the Blalock-Thomas-Taussig procedure, initially the only surgical treatment available for tetralogy of Fallot, was palliative but not curative.