Interventional pediatric cardiology: state of the art and future directions.

Although the interventional pediatric cardiology began in the early 1950s, it was not until the mid-1980s that a full spectrum of transcatheter interventions in children could be undertaken including balloon atrial septostomy which has been in usage since 1966. Enormous developments have occurred even from the mid-1980s to date. In this review, current state-of-the-art for each broad area of therapeutic catheterization is presented. A large variety of lesions could be opened-up or closed, as the case may be and the results of these interventions were either similar to or better than those reported for the alternative surgical therapy. Indeed, therapeutic catheterization techniques have replaced the conventional surgery for many lesions and are threatening to do so for others. However, long-term follow-up results are scanty and are needed. Further miniaturization of catheters/sheaths used in interventional pediatric cardiology and development of new technology for the lesions which are not amenable to currently available transcatheter methods are awaited. The future seems to be bright for interventional pediatric cardiology.