Pediatric Heart Surgery Research & Innovation

Frank Hanley, MD, pioneered the unifocalization technique decades ago and markedly improved the quality of life and survival rate for children with tetralogy of Fallot. Since then, he has perfected unifocalization to allow him and the skilled cardiothoracic surgeons at Packard Children’s to treat complex congenital heart and lung conditions. For example, the Stanford Children’s pediatric cardiothoracic surgery team applies unifocalization to repair pulmonary atresia with ventricular septal defect and major aortopulmonary collaterals. This empowers our pediatric patients to feel better and have better heart and lung function. Read one of our retrospective review studies here.

Frank Hanley, MD, invented unifocalization, a procedure used to treat tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia and major aortopulmonary collateral arteries, and he’s known as the worldwide expert on this procedure. We underwent a retrospective review of pediatric patients treated at Stanford Children’s who required unifocalization. The study concluded that when using an approach that emphasized early complete unifocalization and repair that incorporated all pulmonary vascular supply, our patients had excellent results, whether it was a first-time repair or a previous surgery.

We’ve teamed up with a Silicon Valley company to develop EchoPixel, which digitally converts computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans into 3-D images that allow our cardiologists to examine every layer of your child’s heart and virtually run through their heart surgery prior to the actual operation. This technology results in increased accuracy for heart surgeons and improved outcomes for your child with complex or rare heart disease.

Our Stanford Medicine 3D and Quantitative Imaging Laboratory creates a physical 3-D model of the heart of every child with a complex or rare structure heart defect so they can study it in detail prior to heart surgery. Heart surgeons in our Complex Biventricular Reconstruction Program use it to evaluate the best multistep surgical repairs that they need to perform to bring your child’s complex congenital heart as close as possible to normal anatomy. This exciting innovation often means better outcomes for your child with a complex heart.

This invention helps us determine the best surgical plan for your child. It uses biomechanics to empower heart surgeons to test different surgical options before your child’s heart surgery and select the one that will produce the best blood flow in and out of the heart—ultimately helping your child feel their best. The digital map helps optimize surgical plans, reduce risk, and improve outcomes for children with complex congenital heart conditions.

Using a voice-activated robot equipped with a tiny fiber-optic camera that projects images on a computer screen, the heart surgeon can go directly to the problem area without stretching heart tissues or deforming delicate structures. Since robot surgery uses only three small incisions—one for the camera and two for surgical instruments—this approach minimizes pain and trauma. It also makes possible a heart surgery at a distance, in which a physician on a computer at the Moore Children’s Heart Center performs a procedure on your child miles away in an operating room in your home community.

Peripheral pulmonary artery stenosis (PPAS) is a complex congenital heart defect frequently associated with Williams and Alagille syndromes. At Stanford Children’s, we have become a leader in surgical solutions for PPAS. Most centers favor catheter-based interventions. In contrast, we use surgical reconstruction, which produces exceptional results. Learn more by reading our retrospective review of 145 patients who benefited from our treatment approach.

A retrospective review study of 230 AAOCA (anomalous aortic origin of a coronary artery) patients who benefited from the technique we use at Stanford Children’s showed that the repair can lead to very high survival rates and low chances of patients needing a reoperation. Our Heart Center team treats more AAOCA patients than most other pediatric centers nationwide.

We are always looking for ways to improve children’s lives in the least invasive manner. That’s why we took two of our flagship procedures at Stanford Children’s—pulmonary artery reconstruction and heart transplant—and rolled them into one to help some children who are likely facing a heart-lung transplant. We are the first in the world to perform this highly complex but life-changing operation, which we named PARplant. The surgery gives children who are candidates for this procedure a better chance at survival that is significantly superior to that afforded by a heart-lung transplant, and it is a preferred surgical approach especially with overall limited availability of donor lungs.