pulmonary artery banding using polytetrafluoroethylene; choice of material

Pulmonary artery (pa) banding was introduced by muller and dammann in 1952 as a palliative operation for patients with congenital heart defects characterized by high pulmonary blood flow and pressures in situations that the definite surgical repair of congenital heart defects should be deferred.1 this operation was suggested to protect the pulmonary vascular bed from irreversible changes until the main cardiac pathology could be corrected by definitive cardiac surgery. they removed a wedge-shaped segment from the wall of the pa and reduced the lumen size by suturing the edges together, followed by banding the pa with a 1-cm wide band composed of several layers of polyethylene film sutured over cotton umbilical tape.1pulmonary artery banding has recently gained interest and mainly used in infants with complex defects where mortality of early repair is prohibitive or where the fontan procedure is the only repair possible.