Repair of unilateral absence of right pulmonary artery with contralateral pulmonary artery autograft interposition in an infant

Abstract

Unilateral absence of the pulmonary artery (PA) is a rare congenital abnormality. Although a traditional 2-stage approach with a preceding systemic-to-PA shunt followed by a definitive repair is mandatory in patients with absent extrapericardial pulmonary arteries, more creative solutions are necessary when 1-stage repair is concerned. We present a novel technique for repairing the absent intrapericardial right pulmonary artery (RPA) with a contralateral PA autograft segment interposition. We believe that this technique using solely autologous tissue is effective in patients in whom the intrapericardial segment of the PAs is absent.