Cardiac surgery

Congenital heart defects most often occur in infancy or during early childhood. Surgical procedures to correct children's congenital heart defects are performed at New Children's Hospital. Nearly all of the reoperations to repair congenital heart defects in adults are performed at Meilahti Tower Hospital. 

In the reoperations conducted in adults, we may need to repair changes in the heart caused by growing or aging. Most often, it is a malfunction of one or more heart valves (stenosis or leakage), calcification of a vascular graft, narrowing of the outflow tract of the right ventricle, or dilation of the aorta. The majority of patients arriving for a reoperation as adults have undergone corrective surgery due to a so-called Fallot's tetralogy or pulmonary artery stenosis. 

In surgery, we try to repair the defective valves by salvaging the patient’s own valve (valvuloplasty), but if this is not possible, we will suture a mechanical valve prosthesis, bioprosthetic valve, or a valve graft in place of the patient’s own valve. If necessary, we will replace the dilated aorta with a prosthetic tube. 

Congenital heart defects are often accompanied by an increase in arrhythmia due to the patient aging and the atrium of the heart dilating, and this will be treated with potential reoperations as far as possible.