A Case Report of Surgical Intervention with Unroofing Technique for Anomalous Origin of the Left Coronary Artery from the Right Sinus of Valsalva

Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery
Vol.26 No.1 2010 (85-91)

Sojiro Sata,¹ Toshiya Koyanagi,¹ Hirofumi Kurata,² Katsuki Hirai,² Shigetake Nishihara,² and Takashi Miyamoto³⁾

Departments of ¹⁾Cardiovascular Surgery, ²⁾Pediatrics, Japanese Red Cross Kumamoto Hospital, Kumamoto, ³⁾Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Gunma Children’s Medical Center, Gunma, Japan

Abstract

Anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the right sinus of Valsalva is a rare anomaly known to cause sudden death at a young age. We report an 11-year-old girl who underwent surgery with an unroofing technique. She recovered from cardiac arrest during emergency cardiac catheterization because of acute myocardial infarction induced by this anomaly. The unroofing technique seems useful to be able to make a sufficiently wide entry of the left coronary artery without a long aortic cross-clamp time.