adding a right to left shunt in an adult

[macaroni21]

the dr's want to  put a shunt inmy 20 year old to the left pulminary artery. this will lower his oxygen. has this been done before in adults ? they said they are hoping for good results,but couldn't tell us much. he had a shunt as a baby. and lived with oxygen levels in the 80's for his first 10 years. they put a starflex device in and this gave him oxygen in the 90's, but has put pressure on his liver and caused damage,

[macaroni21]

thanks.

[kenkeith]

I believe you are referring to pulmonary veins not arteries.  Veins are the vessels that bring oxygenated blood from the lungs to the left atrium.  Pulmonary arteries are channels for unfiltered blood to the lungs.

It seems oxygen is lower in the left upper pulmonary vein than in the right pulmonary vein in all of the adult patients, but there was no difference between the right and left pulmonary veins in the children. Therefore, this difference is not congenital but acquired. It is not clear whether this is specific to adult ASD patients, because drawing blood from both pulmonary veins is possible only in the presence of ASD or patent foramen ovale.  Having said that I'm not sure of the configuration anomaly to be corrected.  There are pulmonary arteries involved in shunting!

Hypoxemia in the left upper pulmonary vein significantly contributed to arterial hypoxemia in the adult group, because the difference in oxygen saturation between the right and left upper pulmonary veins may derive from the right-to-left shunt being directed to the left upper pulmonary vein. However, because the transesophageal contrast echocardiography, which can visualize the left upper pulmonary vein easily and was performed in 11 of the 13 adult patients, did not show any bubble toward the left upper pulmonary vein during right-to-left shunting in any patient, this possibility is unlikely