The Food and Drug Administration recently approved a heart stent made specifically for infants and young children, a device that could help kids born with certain congenital heart defects avoid a series of open heart operations over their childhoods. In some cases, those defects are treated with stents, which prop open blood vessels, ensuring that blood can properly flow through them. “You can imagine that is less than ideal — they’re too big.”This means that as the child grows older and their blood vessels get bigger, stents have to be replaced, often with open heart surgery, Zahn said. “It’s not unusual to have kids who are going into middle school who’ve had four or five or even six open heart surgeries,” he said. Patients are usually able to go home about a day later, compared with around seven days for open heart surgery, including some days in the ICU.

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Persons: we’ve, ”, Evan Zahn, Guerin, Zahn, “, who’ve, Shabana Shahanavaz, she’s, Shahanavaz, Renata Organizations: Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control, Guerin Congenital, Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Locations: U.S, Cedars, Los Angeles, California, Cincinnati