Center for Pediatric Heart Valve Disorders

Congenital heart defects are the most common birth defect globally; however, there is still no therapy to mitigate valve regurgitation in newborns and infants, and no valve replacement option that eliminates the need for a repeated surgery as the patient ages. This Frontier Program intends to answer these unmet needs by providing coordinated care for patients with pediatric valve disorders, delivering novel imaging platforms to refine patient-specific modeling, offering personalized valve therapies to treat the individual patient's needs, and defining therapeutic drug targets to mitigate the progression of the disease.

The Pediatric Heart Valve Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia brings together a comprehensive team of experts from across the Cardiac Center with expertise in cardiac surgery, interventional cardiology, and cardiac imaging, in collaboration with scientists and researchers toward a coordinated approach to treating valve diseases and expanding the existing knowledge of these complex conditions.

The Center seeks to integrate novel imaging platforms such as three-dimensional echocardiography and virtual reality in surgical and transcatheter planning to develop new approaches to treating valve disorders in children. By providing a “one-stop shop” for evaluation and treatment, the Center offers additional opportunities for clinical research in the development of international guidelines for timing and type of valve interventions in pediatrics, which currently do not exist. Additional efforts toward device design and development may also mature toward clinical application.

Research Highlights

• Ongoing investigation into the mechanism of atrioventricular valve regurgitation in single ventricle patients (Matthew Jolley, MD, PI, RO1 2020)
• Demonstration of potential mechanisms underlying prosthetic heart valve dysfunction (Robert Levy, MD, PI, ongoing)
• Development of novel transcatheter platforms and devices to address mitral and tricuspid valve regurgitation (Matthew Gillespie, MD, PI, ongoing)

Links of Interest

Pediatric Heart Valve Center

Echocardiography Laboratory