Successful Surgical Repair of a Ventricular Septal Defect and High Take-off of the Right Coronary Artery in an Infant

A 6-month-old boy was admitted in acute distress because of severe dyspnea and intractable congestive heart failure. With a diagnosis of the ventricular septal defect, pulmonary hypertension and deteriorated lung function due to the respiratory syncytial virus infection, he was taken to the operating room to undergo banding of the pulmonary artery. However, an intraoperative finding of the anomalous high take-off from the right coronary artery made us to discontinue the banding procedure. After intensive medical management, he underwent a successful surgical repair of the defect with no ischemic injury to the myocardium. Congenital cardiac defects having this particular subset of anomalies of the coronary artery need to be repaired primarily since the palliative procedure near the anomalous coronary artery has a potential hazard to compromise the flow of blood through this artery.