Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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]
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.
MBTS shunt provides connection from the pulmonary artery to brachiocephalic artery or subclavian artery, while the RVPA conduit provides connection from right ventricle to pulmonary artery. [21] [5] Blalock-Taussig Shunt, a Gore-Tex conduit (a kind of plastic tubing) is used to connect the subclavian artery to the pulmonary artery. In this case ...
Helen Brooke Taussig (May 24, 1898 – May 20, 1986) was an American cardiologist, working in Baltimore and Boston, who founded the field of pediatric cardiology.She is credited with developing the concept for a procedure that would extend the lives of children born with Tetralogy of Fallot (the most common cause of blue baby syndrome).
While working together at Hopkins, Blalock and Thomas developed a shunt technique to bypass coarctation of the aorta. Simultaneously, Helen Taussig, a cardiologist, presented to Blalock the problem of the blue baby syndrome - a congenital heart defect known as Tetralogy of Fallot which results in inadequate oxygenation of the blood. [8]
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]
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.
Surgery in great vessels (aortic coarctation repair, Blalock-Taussig shunt creation, closure of patent ductus arteriosus) became common after the turn of the century and falls in the domain of cardiac surgery, but technically cannot be considered heart surgery.