Author Spotlight: Simulating Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Using a Neonatal Piglet Model

Mortality rates for children with congenital heart defects have improved significantly in recent years given improvements in cardiac surgery. However, comorbidities remain extremely common, and that's the goal of our lab. We aim to investigate these comorbidities, uncover underlying causes, and develop preventative measures.

Right now, we are studying neuro abnormalities that develop after cardiac surgery. This protocol offers a feasible and reproducible animal model of simulating pediatric cardiac surgery. So with that, researchers can use it as a base to test many different experimental conditions and a wide variety of other hypotheses.

The peripheral cannulation technique for porcine cardiopulmonary bypass in our model is both practical and cost effective. Furthermore, it does allow a more reliable way to assess postoperative outcomes than the traditional central cannulation technique. The flexibility of our model encourages future work in congenital heart disease and comorbidity studies.

For example, our lab is currently planning to expand this model to study real-time monitoring of cerebral parameters such as oxygenation status and cerebral blood flow.