Early clinical experience with a modified amplatzer ductal occluder for transcatheter arterial duct occlusion in infants and small children

Objectives To describe early clinical experience with the amplatzer ductal occluder II additional sizes (ADO II AS) for percutaneous arterial duct occlusion in infants and small children. Methods Pre‐, intra‐ and postprocedural data analysis of all patients undergoing arterial duct occlusion with the ADO II AS from three tertiary referral centers. Results 17 patients (10 female) with a median age of 6 months (range 1.0–48.1 months) and a median weight of 5.7 kg (range 1.7–17.4 kg) underwent attempted transcatheter ductal closure with the ADO II AS. Retrograde arterial approach was used in eight patients with transvenous femoral approach used in nine. The mean minimal ductal diameter was 2.2 ± 0.7 mm with mean ductal length of 6.8 ± 1.7 mm. Device sizes used were 5/6 ( n = 5), 3/4 ( n = 4), 4/4 ( n = 3), 4/6 ( n = 3), and 5/4 ( n = 2) with four French delivery sheaths used in all cases. The median fluoroscopy time was 5.7 ± 1.8 min. Two patients underwent delivery under exclusive echocardiography guidance. Complete ductal occlusion was achieved by the end of the procedure in 13 patients. Device embolization to the left pulmonary artery occurred in one patient with successful surgical removal and ligation of the arterial duct. Three patients required device resizing following deployment of the initial device. Complete ductal occlusion without aortic arch or left pulmonary artery stenosis has been identified in all 16 remaining patients on transthoracic echocardiographic follow‐up at median of 4.2 months. Conclusions The new amplatzer ductal occluder II AS achieves excellent ductal closure rates through low profile delivery systems in small infants and children with variable ductal anatomy. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.