The pediatric specialists at Norton Children’s Heart Institute, affiliated with the UofL School of Medicine, will choose an endovascular stent to treat certain cases where a blood vessel is too narrow. One example of this is coarctation of the aorta. In this heart defect, a part of the aorta is narrower than it should be.

One way to fix this is for a heart surgeon to perform surgery. As an alternative, if your child is an appropriate candidate, an interventional cardiologist can implant an endovascular stent by cardiac catheterization in order to widen the coarctation of the aorta. The stent is a small tube that is released in the narrowed vessel and expands, widening the vessel.  Unfortunately, the stent won’t grow with the child’s body, therefore, stents are typically used in older children rather than babies.

The board-certified and fellowship-trained specialists at Norton Children’s Heart Institute have the experience and training to know whether this less-invasive procedure is right for your child.

Recovery from endovascular stent placement is dependent on where the stent was placed, what type of defect the stent addressed, and the child’s underlying condition. Your child will need long-term care by a pediatric cardiologist to monitor the stent and your child’s heart condition. If your child has a recurrence of the narrowing in the blood vessel, they may need another stent placed in the future.

Why Choose Norton Children’s Heart Institute

No other congenital heart surgery program in Kentucky, Ohio or Southern Indiana is rated higher by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons than the Norton Children’s Heart Institute Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery Program.

• Norton Children’s Hospital is a pioneer in pediatric cardiothoracic surgery, performing Kentucky’s first pediatric heart transplant in 1986 and becoming the second site in the United States to perform an infant heart transplant.
• Our board-certified and fellowship-trained pediatric cardiovascular surgeons are leaders in the field as clinicians and researchers.
• More than 5,000 children a year visit Norton Children’s Heart Institute, affiliated with the UofL School of Medicine, for advanced heart care.
• Norton Children’s Heart Institute successfully performs more than 17,500 procedures a year.
• The Society of Thoracic Surgeons rated Norton Children’s Heart Institute among the best in the region after studying years of our patients’ outcomes and our ability to treat a range of pediatric heart conditions, including the most severe.
• Norton Children’s Heart Institute has satellite outpatient offices in Ashland, Bowling Green, Campbellsville, Elizabethtown, Frankfort, London, Madisonville, Murray, Owensboro, Paducah and Shepherdsville in Kentucky; as well as Corydon, Jasper, Madison and Scottsburg in Indiana; 28 tele-echocardiography locations in Kentucky and Southern Indiana; and six fetal echocardiography locations across Kentucky.
• The American Board of Thoracic Surgery has awarded the cardiothoracic surgeons at Norton Children’s Hospital with subspecialty certification in congenital heart surgery.
• The Jennifer Lawrence Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) is the largest dedicated CICU in Kentucky, equipped with 17 private rooms and the newest technology available for heart care.
• Our multidisciplinary approach to pediatric heart surgery brings together our specialists in cardiothoracic surgery, cardiology, anesthesiology, cardiac critical care and other areas to create a complete care plan tailored for your child.