Palliative surgeries and their classification:
Palliative surgeries can be considered according to the patient's health situation in children with congenital heart disease who have two ventricles (biventricular) or in children with only one ventricle (univentricular).
Biventriculares:
The current management on many occasions for these newborns involves a first palliative surgical stage used in cases where corrective surgery is not possible and this occurs when the child is in poor health due to his heart disease and it has not been possible to improve him with medications, finding too ill to endure definitive reconstructive surgery.
These are surgeries that do not correct the heart defect, but allow to improve the conditions of the child to later lead to a corrective surgery.
Univentriculares:
Palliative surgeries in newborns are the usual management when complex congenital heart diseases of the single ventricle type occur, such as those previously described (tricuspid atresia, hypoplastic left heart syndrome, etc).
It aims to stabilize the child and allow him to live.
Those patients who are born with a single ventricle may require three surgical steps: The first involves palliation and/or fistula or cerclage, the second is called Glenn, and the third is Fontan surgery.
This entire process is known as Univentricular Pathway.
