Pulmonary balloon dilation for valvular and arterial stenosis.

The use of balloon catheters to dilate obstructed vascular lesions represents one of the major advances in cardiology and dates back to 1964 when Dotter and Judkins reported their experience in dilating arteriosclerotic obstructive lesions. Since that time, the technique of balloon dilation has been used extensively for coronary and peripheral vascular lesions but also has been applied to such diverse cardiac lesions as pulmonic stenosis, mitral stenosis, aortic stenosis, aortic coarctation, superior vena caval and pulmonary venous obstructions. Balloon dilation has been used for both valvular and arterial pulmonary stenosis. The purpose of this study is to report on our initial experience in Hawaii with balloon dilation of valvular pulmonic stenosis and also with dilation of peripheral pulmonary artery stenosis due to congenital causes and as a residual postoperative lesion.