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The birth of a new era: the introduction of the systemic-to-pulmonary artery shunt for the treatment of cyanotic congenital heart disease*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2014

Luca A. Vricella ,
Marshall L. Jacobs  and
Duke E. Cameron
Luca A. Vricella*
Affiliation:
Division of Cardiac Surgery, The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America
Marshall L. Jacobs
Affiliation:
Division of Cardiac Surgery, The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America
Duke E. Cameron
Affiliation:
Division of Cardiac Surgery, The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America
*
Correspondence to: Luca A. Vricella, MD, FACS, Associate Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics, Director, Pediatric Cardiac Surgery and Heart Transplantation, The Johns Hopkins University, Sheikh Zayed Tower – Suite 7107, 1800 Orleans Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21287, United States of America. Tel: (443) 287 – 1262; Fax: (410) 955 – 3809; E-mail: lvricella@jhmi.edu
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Abstract

Cardiac surgery was revolutionized on November 29, 1944, when Eileen Saxon underwent the first systemic-to-pulmonary artery shunt at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America. The systemic-to-pulmonary artery shunt was initially developed in the laboratory and then applied to patients through the unique collaboration of Vivien Thomas, Alfred Blalock, and Helen B. Taussig. This innovation was the first operation to successfully treat cyanotic cardiac disease. The history of the first operation to successfully treat cyanotic heart disease is an extraordinary history of courage, innovation, and scientific breakthrough. Just as striking is perhaps the ability of the protagonists of this story to overcome seemingly insurmountable barriers of racial and gender discrimination and revolutionize medicine.

Keywords

Tetralogy of fallotcongenital heart diseasecyanotic congenital heart diseasesystemic-to-pulmonary artery shunt
Type
Original Article
Information
Cardiology in the Young , Volume 23 , Issue 6: HeartWeek 2013 , December 2013 , pp. 852 - 857
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

*

Presented at “The Birth of Heart Surgery: Lessons Learned from Tetralogy – Past, Present and Future” Dinner Symposium Sponsored by Johns Hopkins Medicine and All Children's Hospital, Thursday, 21 February, 2013, at The Sixth World Congress of Paediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town, South Africa, 17–22 February, 2013. A video of this presentation can be viewed at the following hyperlink: [http://www.allkids.org/wcpccs].

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