Pediatric Surgeon Develops Groundbreaking Less-Invasive Heart Surgery

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — It's a fairly common birth defect that often corrects itself as the child gets older, but when it doesn't doctors have to open up the chest leaving large scars on the child's chest.

But one Sutter Health doctor has come up with a way to avoid that invasive approach and speed up recovery time for his patients with heart defects.

Sutter Pediatric Cardiac Surgeon Naruhito Watanabe made history as the first doctor in the United States to fix a congenital heart defect without cracking her chest open.

Watanabe has witnessed plenty of children and babies, like Taneigha, left with a sizeable scar after surgery to correct their congenital heart defect. 

He wanted to try something less invasive and had heard surgeons in Brazil were doing.

Taneigha's mom, Lana Avila, said was as trusting as she was nervous:

"It's just very scary. It's something that you don't think you ever have to deal with, and then all of a sudden you do," Avila said.

So what did doctor Watanabe do? He made a very small incision, only one and a half to 2 inches long. Then he went in through the ribs instead of cutting the sternum and separating the chest.

It typically takes six weeks to recover from this type of surgery, but Taneigha was back to normal after two weeks.

With Watanabe's method, the patient benefits from both a cosmetic and recovery standpoint.

For now, this less-invasive procedure can only be done on a certain type of heart defect, but Sutter doctors are working to expand the groundbreaking procedure.