Percutaneous Closure of Atrial Septal Defects

The earliest recorded account of an atrial septa! defect (ASD) was in the 15th century, when Leonardo da Vinci described a "perforating channel" in the atrial septum during post-mortem evaluation of a heart.1 Clinical diagnosis in a living patient would not occur until the early 20th century.

In 1953, Dr. Gibbon at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia performed the first ASD repair on cardiopulmonary bypass, and two decades later Ors. King and Mills performed the first transcatheter closure of secundum ASDs.2·3 The device was deployed in only half of their carefully selected patients, however, since the delivery sheaths were large and the devices bulky and difficult to deploy. Now, due to dramatic advances in device design and cardiac imaging, percutaneous transcatheter techniques can safely and reliably close secundum ASDs and patent foramen ovalae {PFO).