Rashkind balloon atrial septostomy
Atrial septostomy is a surgical procedure in which a small hole is created between the upper two chambers of the heart, the atria. This procedure is primarily used to palliate dextro-Transposition of the great arteries or d-TGA (often imprecisel ...
to treat
transposition of the great vessels
Transposition of the great vessels (TGV) is a group of congenital heart defects involving an abnormal spatial arrangement of any of the great vessels: superior and/or inferior venae cavae, pulmonary artery, pulmonary veins, and aorta. Congenita ...
.
Biography
Rashkind was born in
Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.University of Louisville School of Medicine. He was a physician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
He is best known for the balloon septostomy procedure. In this technique, a cardiologist feeds a catheter into the heart of a patient with transposition of the great vessels. This catheter is advanced into the patient's right atrium, across a flap known as the patent foramen ovale (PFO) and into the patient's left atrium. There is a balloon on the end of the catheter. The balloon is inflated and then pulled back across the PFO, creating a hole in the heart through which oxygenated and deoxygenated blood can mix. Rashkind introduced his balloon septostomy procedure in 1966.
In May of that year, ''
LIFE Magazine
''Life'' was an American magazine published weekly from 1883 to 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 until 2000. During its golden age from 1936 to 1972, ''Life'' was a wide-ranging weekly general-interest ma ...
'' profiled Rashkind and described his procedure on a young boy named Bobby. The procedure had required only local anesthesia and the patient's color improved immediately thereafter. Describing the medical community's response to the Rashkind procedure, pediatric cardiologist
Charles Mullins
Major Charles Herbert Mullins VC CMG (28 June 1869 – 24 May 1916) was a South African recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Comm ...
later said, "The initial response to this report varied between admiration and horror but, in either case, the procedure stirred the imagination of the 'invasive' cardiologists throughout the entire cardiology world and set the stage for all future intracardiac interventional procedures – the true beginning of pediatric and adult interventional cardiology."
Writing about Rashkind's balloon innovation, pediatric cardiologist
Jacqueline Noonan
Jacqueline Anne Noonan (October 28, 1928 – July 23, 2020) was an American pediatric cardiologist best known for her characterization of a genetic disorder now called Noonan syndrome. She was also the original describer of hypoplastic left heart ...
said that Rashkind could legitimately be referred to as "the father of interventional pediatric cardiology." In 1986, Rashkind died of cancer at home in
Marion, Pennsylvania
Marion is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census the population was 851.
It lies along U.S. Route 11 south of Chambersburg and north of Greencastle ...