Absorbable pulmonary arterial banding: an optimal strategy for muscular or residual ventricular septal defects.

摘要

With conventional pulmonary arterial banding (PAB), a second surgical procedure to remove the band is compulsory, regardless of eventual ventricular septal defect (VSD) closure. Use of an absorbable PAB abolishes this requirement.In 2003, we started to use a custom absorbable PAB made of polydioxanone, mainly for patients in whom muscular and residual VSDs were expected to close spontaneously. Polydioxanone is a widely used biodegradable polymer that is known to keep 35% of its mechanical strength for about 3 weeks and to degrade completely in about 6 months.