Paediatric congenital heart diseases

The Paediatric Cardiology Department at the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc is internationally renowned for the treatment of cardiac malformations.   

The Paediatric Cardiology Department at the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc is experienced in welcoming patients from abroad. In fact, foreign patients account for approximately 15% of the patients who undergo surgery here. They are referred to the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc via partner doctors based abroad or via NGOs and associations like Chaîne de l’Espoir, in which Professor Thierry Sluysmans, head of the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc’s Paediatric Cardiology Department, takes a particular interest.

Which pathologies?

There are a great number of cardiac malformations. Young patients from abroad who come to the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc for treatment generally suffer from the more complex malformations: poor ventricular-arterial coupling, single ventricle, transposition of the great vessels, etc.

Leading edge treatments

Today, doctors have advanced techniques available to correct the majority of cardiac malformations. In addition to “traditional” surgery, they can, where appropriate, use cardiac catheterisation. This technique involves introducing a small tube (catheter) via a vein or artery that is then taken up to the heart by following the natural pathway of the blood vessels. Tiny surgical instruments can then be introduced to operate on the cardiac malformation, without opening the thorax. Every year, the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc’s Paediatric Cardiology Department carries out some 250 cardiac catheterisations and also around 250 surgical procedures on children.

Doctors with international expertise

The doctors in the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc’s Paediatric Cardiology Department have all been trained in the world’s best specialist centres: Toronto (Canada), Boston (USA), Paris, London, etc. And the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc’s Paediatric Cardiology Department benefits from its doctors’ high-level training: “Our results, when we publish them, are as good, and sometimes better than those of certain major centres!”

International collaboration

Doctors from all over the world also come to train at the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc’s Paediatric Cardiology Department. This has enabled our hospital to develop collaborations with Central Africa (Rwanda, Congo, etc), North Africa (Morocco, Algeria) and South America (Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, etc). Some of these doctors have decided to remain in Belgium, at the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc, where their mother tongue (Spanish, Arabic, etc) facilitates communication with patients from abroad.

More information (for the time being only in French) : www.saintluc.be