The Blalock–Hanlon procedure was created by Alfred Blalock and C. Rollins Hanlon. It was described in 1950.[1] Alfred Blalock was an American surgeon most known for his work on the Blue Baby syndrome.[2] C. Rollins Hanlon was also an American surgeon but was best known for his work in cardiology.[3] The procedure that these two men created, known as the Blalock–Hanlon procedure, was a new concept termed atrial septectomy. This procedure had been experimented on the right atrium of dogs before Dr. Blalock and Dr. Hanlon had performed it on humans.[4]
It involves the intentional creation of a septal defect in order to alter the flow of oxygenated blood. It was devised as a palliative correction for transposition of the great vessels.
The Blalock–Hanlon procedure was a cardiothoracic procedure created in the 1950s. The Blalock–Hanlon procedure was created to enhance intracardiac combinations.[5] A majority of the surgeries using this procedure were performed in pediatrics on infants ranging from one day to five months of age.[5] Of all the children who had this surgery, only one had to undergo a second operation to repair damage not fixed during the Blalock–Hanlon procedure.[6] According to Behrendt, Orringer, and Stern, there were only ten early deaths out of the forty-eight children the operation was performed on.[5] The deaths were of children that were less than one month old due to extensive measures taken during the operation.[5]
The procedure also had a relatively high mortality rate of only twenty-one percent while it was performed however, because of the excessive mortality rate it is no longer used in today's medical society.[5] This procedure was a combination of two circulations (Pulmonary and Systematic).[4] Due to the intracardiac mixing, the procedure can cause postoperative arrhythmias, cerebral thrombosis, adhesions develops in the pericardial space, and many infants will face death between the septectomy.[5]