A Sano shunt is a shunt from the

right ventricle A ventricle is one of two large chambers toward the bottom of the heart that collect and expel blood towards the peripheral beds within the body and lungs. The blood pumped by a ventricle is supplied by an atrium, an adjacent chamber in the uppe ...

to the

pulmonary circulation The pulmonary circulation is a division of the circulatory system in all vertebrates. The circuit begins with deoxygenated blood returned from the body to the right atrium of the heart where it is pumped out from the right ventricle to the lungs ...

. In contrast to a Blalock–Taussig shunt, circulation is primarily in systole. It is sometimes used as the first step in a

Norwood procedure The Norwood procedure is the first of three surgeries intended to create a new functional systemic circuit in patients with hypoplastic left heart syndrome and other complex heart defects with single ventricle physiology. The first successful Norw ...

This procedure was pioneered by the Japanese Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Shunji Sano (b.1953) in 2003.

References

Cardiac surgery {{surgery-stub