Congenital Cardiac Surgery Center
We perform more than 900 surgeries per year
Clinical and Research Overview
Emory's Congenital Cardiac Surgery Center is one of the most active programs in the country and the most comprehensive in Georgia for treating neonates, young infants, children, adolescents, and adults with congenital cardiac disease. Forerunners in the appropriate performance of minimally invasive surgical procedures, implantation of mechanical heart devices, and application of improved heart valves, our surgical team has regularly achieved survival outcomes that are at the top of national levels, treating pediatric patients at Sibley Heart Center of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) at Egleston, and adult patients at the Emory/Sibley Adult Congenital Cardiac Center at Emory University Hospital.
Our physicians are involved in a variety of high-profile investigations, including ECMO for the management of postoperative cardiac failure in infants, protection of the brains of children and neonates during cardiopulmonary bypass and circulatory arrest, genetic factors involved in the development of single ventricle heart disease, a collaborative analysis with the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health of long-term outcomes following repair of certain congenital heart diseases, and various investigative collaborations with members of the Georgia Institute of Technology and other major pediatric cardiac surgery centers. CHOA maintains a listing of current clinical trials being conducted under its auspices.
Our Surgical Team
- In 1988, Dr. Kirk Kanter was part of the Emory surgical team that performed Georgia's first "domino" heart transplant. That same year, he performed the state's first pediatric heart transplant on a three-year-old at CHOA at Egleston. In 1993, he performed Georgia's first lung transplant. He was appointed Egleston's Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery as well as Director of the Heart and Lung Transplant Program in 1998. Under Dr. Kanter's guidance, Egleston began offering the Stage 1 Norwood procedure for hypoplastic left heart syndrome in 2000; by 2005, the service was achieving some of the best outcomes with the procedure in the country with a 91 percent 30-day in-hospital survival rate. In December 2008, Dr. Kanter performed the first pediatric Berlin Heart surgery in Georgia on a five-month old patient. Though not yet FDA-approved, the Berlin Heart can be implanted on a compassionate-use basis and is the first device of its kind small enough to be used in infants.
- Dr. Paul Kirshbom, the Medical Director of the Cardiac ECMO Program at Egleston, came to Emory in 2002 after completing his fellowship in pediatric cardiothoracic surgery at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He devotes part of his time to research initiatives, such as evaluating the genetic factors involved in the development of single ventricle heart disease and pediatric neurological protection during open heart surgery. His clinical specialties are neonatal and infant cardiac repairs and congenital heart disease. In 2006, Dr. Kirshbom led a team of volunteer, hand-selected pediatric specialists to Tomsk, Siberia, to train a full team of Russian pediatric cardiac specialists.
- Dr. Brian Kogon joined the service after completing his pediatric cardiac surgery fellowship at Emory in 2004. In 2006 he was appointed Surgical Director of Adult Congenital Cardiac Surgery as well as Director of Emory University School of Medicine's Congenital Cardiac Surgery Fellowship. In March 2008, Dr. Kogon performed Emory University Hospital's 500th adult heart transplant.
