A team of doctors from the Clinic of Cardiac Surgery of the University Children's Hospital in Kraków led by Prof. Tomasz Mroczek has carried out a surgical procedure which involved a complete restructuring of the heart of a one-and-a-half-year-old. The complex procedure, which for the first time was performed outside of the United States, was compared by the surgical team to the Moon landing.
'Each part of the heart – the aorta, left and right pulmonary arteries, coronary vessels, the atrium – all of them needed to be rebuilt to ensure a healthy blood flow. In essence, we switched the function of the heart chambers. It was the only way we could have saved little Janusz's life', said Prof. Tomasz Mroczek, comparing the complexity of the surgery to the Moon landing.
As stated by the University Children's Hospital in Kraków, the procedure proved to be successful thanks to months of preparations and a close-knit coopetation within a team of anaesthesiologists, cardiac surgeons, nursing staff, perfusionists and many others. This is very good news for Polish and European patients, as it was previously only available in the United States.
