title: Closure of atrial and ventricular septal defects should be performed by the surgeon.
abstract: Surgeons look back on 57 years of experience in the closure of atrial septal defects (ASDs) and 46 years in the closure of ventricular septal defects (VSDs). The transcatheter approaches to repair ASDs started first in the 1980s and for VSDs 8 years later. This study sought to reveal the surgical features only given by the surgical therapy and the limitation of interventional ASD and VSD closure. A variety of surgical techniques including the minimal invasive techniques for ASD or VSD closure are well described in recent publication with good results. The surgical trend is to improve the cosmetic outcome by minimizing the size of skin incision. The latest robotically assisted technique requires only four stab wound incisions. New techniques and devices have revolutionized the transcatheter technique but could not achieve the surgical ability to close all types of ASD or VSD, control arrhythmias, and correct additional valve disease or malformation. The mortality for interventional and surgical procedures approaches zero in recent publication. The residual shunting after surgical closure of ASD varies from 2% to 7.8% versus 5% to 33% after interventional closure. General complications caused by the surgical procedure are negligible; however, the shortness of hospital stay and the cosmetic appeal is an advantage of interventional ASD closure. There is no scientific comparison of surgical vs. interventional VSD closure yet.
authors.affiliation: The Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. anton.moritz@kgu.de
authors.forename: Anton
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Moritz
authors.forename: Feyzan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ozaslan
authors.forename: Selami
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dogan
authors.forename: Ulf
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Abdel-Rahman
authors.forename: Tayfun
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Aybek
authors.forename: Gerhard
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wimmer-Greinecker
mesh_terms: D006328:Cardiac Catheterization / Q000009:adverse effects; D006344:Heart Septal Defects, Atrial / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000601:surgery* / Q000628:therapy; D006345:Heart Septal Defects, Ventricular / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000601:surgery* / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D019060:Minimally Invasive Surgical Procedures; D013903:Thoracic Surgery