Echocardiography-Guided Percutaneous Interventions for Coarctation of Aorta

Abstract

Coarctation of the aorta (CoA) is a relatively rare congenital vascular malformation, which is mainly treated with surgical operation, balloon dilatation, and stent implantation. The preferred treatment is surgery. Balloon dilatation and stent implantation are mostly used for the treatment of postoperative restenosis. Due to the undesirable long-term effects of percutaneous balloon dilatation in the treatment of CoA, stent implantation is now favored in more clinical practice. Traditional balloon dilatation and stent implantation were performed under fluoroscopy guidance, while nowadays, the tries of using echocardiography as substitution could protect both patients and healthcare professionals from radiation and contrast agents, which would play an increasingly important role and have promising future. This chapter introduces how to perform PAN procedure for CoA.