With interventional cardiology, many patients are now being benefitted immensely from minimally invasive techniques than the traditional method of surgery for treatment of congenital heart disease or defect. For congenital heart disease, nonsurgical and medical treatment varies because there are several types of congenital heart defects.
To treat congenital stenosis or to perform device closures for septal defects and other vascular structures, traditionally open-heart surgery was performed in all types of patients. However, due to advancement in technology, the technique used for most of the congenital heart problems is exclusively interventional. To close defects, the standard transcatheter procedure using a closure device which is mounted on a balloon catheter is performed. To treat stenosis, dilation of any obstruction during cardiac catheterization is done using a balloon dilatation procedure. These techniques can be carried out as a 1-day admission to the hospital, as an outpatient procedure or in new-borns shortly after birth. In an interventional procedure, the patient can go home the next day with no recovery period and it is done with a beating heart. In the catheterization lab, valves are now being replaced percutaneously.