Cardiac Surgical Repair Should Be Offered to Infants with Trisomy 18, Interrupted Aortic Arch and Ventricular Septal Defect.

The management of children born with trisomy 18 is controversial, and both providers and parents often have differing opinions. Many parents choose to terminate the pregnancy while others go forward, making decisions based on their beliefs, understanding, and physician recommendations. Physicians are similarly divided regarding treatment of these children, as some feel that aggressive treatments are futile while others defer to the parents' wishes.Interrupted aortic arch with ventricular septal defect in children with trisomy 18 presents an ethical dilemma that highlights the kinds of controversies in medical decision making facing physicians on a daily basis. Repair of interrupted aortic arch with ventricular septal defect poses a high risk to newborns with or without trisomy 18. Therefore, the option for surgery should be treated as with any routine informed consent process. Parents should be counseled about the risks, benefits, alternatives, and the likelihood of success both short and long term and be should offered a choice between surgery and palliative care.

Infants with Trisomy 18 and Complex Congenital Heart Defects Should Not Undergo Open Heart Surgery.

Aggressive medical and surgical interventions have not been clearly demonstrated to improve survival in neonates with trisomy 18; there are no data that demonstrates improved quality of life for these children after these interventions; and these interventions are clearly associated with significant morbidity, resource allocation, and cost.

[Guidelines on live demonstrations of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery: pros and cons].

Guidelines on live demonstrations of cardiothoracic surgery were established in Japan following a single incident of an inappropriately performed live demonstration of an open repair of a thoracic aneurysm. Although the guidelines have contributed to ensuring patient safety and privacy, live demonstrations of surgical procedures in Japan have nearly been eliminated due to their strict regulations. However, since the guidelines only apply to surgeons who belong to surgical societies, live demonstrations performed by interventionalists are still performed without following the guidelines. Furthermore, the guidelines regulate both open repair as well as interventional procedures. Some procedures, such as stent graft and laparoscopic procedures, are suited for live demonstrations and some are not, and the guidelines should be tailored to each procedure. At Jikei University, we have held seven live demonstration symposiums with 5,700 participants, of whom 90% provided positive feedback on the value of the live demonstrations. In addition, a survey showed that the morbidity and mortality rates of the 122 live demonstrations performed during this period did not differ from those of similar procedures performed conventionally at our institution, indicating that live demonstration surgery can be performed without compromising safety. If performed by experienced surgeons obeying the guideline, live demonstration surgery is an effective, safe educational tool.

Ethical and regulatory issues concerning engineered tissues for congenital heart repair.

Recent progress in the fields of tissue engineering and xenotransplantation has brought the reality of using engineered tissues for the treatment of congenital heart disease ever closer. However, the introduction of complex scientific advances into the clinic can generate difficult ethical dilemmas for surgeons, patients, and the wider public. Conventional regulatory approaches are not well suited to the introduction of novel cell- and tissue-based therapies. This review presents a short summary of the current state of the art of tissue engineering and xenotransplantation as it relates to congenital heart surgery. The ethical arguments and emerging regulatory framework are then presented, with emphasis on the regulation of tissue-engineered heart valves and the ethics of cardiac xenotransplantation.

Ethical issues concerning cardiac surgery in patients with syndromic abnormalities.

Advances in surgical techniques, cardiac anesthesia, and pre- and postoperative care have made the surgical treatment of complex congenital cardiac disease available to an ever-increasing number of children, including those with a wide range of extracardiac anomalies. Over the past few decades cardiac surgery in infants and children with syndrome-associated physical and mental conditions has undergone a remarkable change, with previously held norms abandoned for new standards. The social, ethical, and clinical appropriateness of these changes has been the focus of much attention. In this article, we provide a brief history of cardiac surgery in children with congenital syndromes, discuss some groundbreaking cases such as that of "Baby Doe," and present some rules of thumb for the pediatric cardiac surgeon and cardiologist to use when caring for children with congenital syndromes.