Sanjiv Gandhi, MD
Cardiothoracic Surgeon
St. Louis Children’s Hospital
- Leads St. Louis Children’s Hospital as one of a handful of transplant centers in the United States to use the Berlin Heart, an experimental device that serves as a bridge to transplant. Currently, it is the only bridge device for children under five.
- St. Louis Children’s Hospital has implanted more Berlin Hearts than any other pediatric hospital in the U.S.
- Specializes in the treatment of children with congenital heart disorders that require surgical care
- Areas of interest include neonatal surgery of all types, surgery for congenital heart disease, Marfan's syndrome and specialized surgeries including the Ross procedure – where the patient's diseased aortic valve is replaced with his or her own pulmonary valve – and the Fontan procedure, which directs the blood coming back from the body straight to the lungs, without being pumped by the heart.
- Associate Professor of Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine
Notable Quotes
Dr. Gandhi on the trend in pediatric cardiac surgery during the past decade that has focused on earlier interventions to provide more corrective measures to restore normal heart anatomy:
“The majority of babies born with structural heart defects will require surgical intervention at some point. Even though complex heart repair in the smallest babies presents added challenges, surgical therapy to return a heart to its normal physiology provides these tiny patients a chance for a more normal life.”
Dr. Gandhi explains that surgical outcomes for most cardiac interventions have generally improved:
“When pediatric heart surgery was in its infancy, mortality rates were pretty significant. Mortality rates have now dropped across the board. It’s not just that surgical techniques are more sophisticated and refined, the preoperative evaluation of the patients and the techniques to diagnose heart conditions have significantly improved. Outcomes today have more to do with the whole team approach to taking care of these patients.”
Dr. Gandhi on the effectiveness of the Berlin Heart:
“The Berlin Heart is not free from complications, but we’ve learned from experience. We know it allows us to support a child as a bridge to transplant longer and much more effectively than we can with conventional mechanical support. That is an important advantage for critically ill children.”