Dr. Joy Zoghbi, cardiac surgeon at Marie Lannelongue Hospital (Saint-Joseph Hospital Group, Paris) in the congenital and pediatric heart disease center, presents French excellence in pediatric and congenital heart surgery.

The Marie Lannelongue hospital performed the first open heart operation in Europe in 1955 and the first neonatal heart transplant in 1988.

The hospital provides a specialist antenatal diagnostic consultation for mothers whose fetus is suspected of cardiac malformation. Some malformations require surgery in the first days or hours of life, such as the transposition of large vessels, or an arterial switch procedure, advanced surgery in which l’hôpital Marie Lannelongue (groupe hospitalier Saint-Joseph, Paris) is a pioneer and world leader (2,500 arterial switches carried out), the separation of coronary arteries or the repair of pulmonary veins.

Surgeons also perform partial or complete aortic arch interruption, some anomalous pulmonary venous returns, critical aortic or pulmonary stenosis or some vascular or valve atresia, and carry out heart transplants.

In 2019, 951 operations were carried out, including 129 in neonatology, 300 on children aged from 1 month to 1 year, 400 for children from 1 year to 18 years and 122 adults, mostly patients monitored since childhood and who need to undergo surgery again (aortic valvuloplasty, for example).