10/07/2023
FONTAN PROCEDURE
A Fontan procedure improves circulation in people who have only one working heart ventricle (single ventricle).
The Fontan procedure lets oxygen-poor blood from the lower part of your body go straight to your pulmonary artery (and then lungs) for oxygen instead of going through your heart first. This procedure usually follows a different operation (Glenn procedure) that sends oxygen-poor blood from your upper body to your pulmonary artery and lungs.
After the Fontan heart procedure, all oxygen-poor blood goes to and through your pulmonary artery to your lungs instead of going through your heart first. This blood flows in a passive way, or without a pumping ventricle to move it.
Children between 2 and 15 (usually 3 to 5) years old who were born with a single ventricle issue may need to have a Fontan heart procedure.
Before having a Fontan heart procedure, the patient usually needs to have at least one other procedure first, such as:
🔴Norwood procedure (letting your heart’s right side get blood to your body and your lungs).
🔴Glenn procedure (sending oxygen-poor blood from your upper body through the superior vena cava to your pulmonary artery).
🔴Blalock-Taussig-Thomas (BTT) shunt (directing blood from your subclavian artery, a major artery, to a pulmonary artery).
🔴Pulmonary artery band (reducing the amount of blood that goes to the lungs and increasing the amount of blood that goes to the body).
A Fontan procedure can treat several heart conditions that involve a ventricle or valve issue, such as:
⭕️Hypoplastic left heart syndrome (the most common reason for a Fontan procedure).
⭕️Hypoplastic right heart syndrome.
⭕️Tricuspid atresia.
⭕️Pulmonary atresia with intact ventricular septum.
⭕️Congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries.
⭕️Unbalanced atrioventricular canal defects.
⭕️Severe Ebstein’s anomaly.
⭕️Double inlet left ventricle.
