Mayo Clinic has been at the forefront of pediatric heart (cardiac) surgery since the specialty began. In the 1950s, Mayo surgeons performed some of the world’s first open-heart surgeries in children using a heart-lung machine developed here. This early success brought children from throughout the world to Mayo Clinic. This helped usher in the field of pediatric cardiac surgery.

To this day, pediatric cardiac surgeons at Mayo Clinic strive to provide the best care for children and develop the care of the future through research and innovation.

When your child needs cardiac surgery, you’ll find the multidisciplinary team of experts you need at Mayo Clinic Children’s Center in Rochester, Minnesota. The Pediatric Cardiac Surgery team and Pediatric Cardiology have extensive experience treating infants and children with serious, complex or rare heart conditions. Examples are tetralogy of Fallot, Ebstein anomaly, truncus arteriosus, tracheobronchial anomalies and conditions diagnosed during pregnancy. Mayo Clinic also is active in the emerging frontier of fetal intervention for heart defects.

Mayo Clinic surgeons have always been leaders in the specialty of cardiovascular surgery, including as presidents of the Congenital Heart Surgeons’ Society, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the American Association for Thoracic Surgery. 

Mayo Clinic has long been a destination medical center for parents seeking the best treatment for their children with complex or serious heart disease. Its multidisciplinary medical and surgical teams review cases of people from all over the world who are seeking advice and recommendations. The clinic’s pediatric cardiac surgeons treat many diseases and conditions. A few of the areas for which they have international renown and special programs include:

• Structural heart disease and valve repair. Mayo Clinic surgeons are expert in evaluating and treating people with valve conditions. Examples include aortic valve defects, mitral valve regurgitation, tricuspid valve regurgitation and valve problems in a single-ventricle heart. They also do many surgeries on the aorta, especially in children and adults with aortic valve disease, Marfan syndrome and other connective tissue diseases. One technique in which Mayo Clinic has excelled for decades is called the Ross procedure, for aortic valve disease. More than 2,000 people have cardiac surgery for heart valve conditions at Mayo Clinic each year.
• Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and septal myectomy. Mayo Clinic surgeons have introduced new surgical techniques for both obstructive and nonobstructive cardiomyopathy. These innovations have helped countless people and changed the approach used by surgeons worldwide. Our physician-scientists continue to make advances in imaging, arrhythmia treatment and defibrillator strategies to prevent sudden death.
• Ebstein anomaly. Mayo Clinic is widely respected for its expertise in Ebstein anomaly. Our heart surgeons have refined repair techniques, including the cone reconstruction. This repair has proved to be effective with a low incidence of a need for a second operation. It’s now the standard of care for this rare condition. Primary tricuspid valve repair rates now exceed 98% for children and 90% for people of all ages. Mayo Clinic has the world’s largest surgical experience in this procedure — more than 1,400 surgeries since 1972.

• Fontan and heart failure procedures and Heart Transplant Program. Mayo Clinic is a leading institution for treating people with a single ventricle. Mayo surgeons helped develop and modify the Fontan procedure that was first used in the early 1970s. Our physician-scientists continue to advance the surgical treatment options for Fontan circulation.

  Mayo Clinic also has one of the largest and most successful heart and multiple organ transplant programs in the United States. It treats newborns, children and adults. The success of surgery for newborns and children is largely due to the long-standing collaboration between pediatric and adult heart specialists.

• Minimally invasive and robot-assisted heart surgery. Technology for treating structural heart defects is advancing rapidly. For example, heart conditions can now often be treated through very small openings in the body or with robot-assisted techniques. Our surgeons are experts in these methods, which may result in less pain and shorter recovery time. The multidisciplinary team approach ensures that all options are considered so that each person gets the right care at the right time.
• Fetal cardiac intervention. There is growing interest worldwide in fetal cardiac intervention for heart defects. Mayo Clinic is at the forefront of fetal surgery. Its maternal fetal medicine specialists and surgeons work together on complex surgery for heart defects found before birth. This results in optimal care for both mother and fetus and helps ensure a seamless transition from fetal life to birth.