Children's Heart Center Overview

Congenital heart disease is one of the most common birth defects, affecting nearly one percent of all babies born, or about 32,000 newborns each year in the United States. Many of these infants and children are first diagnosed when their pediatrician hears a heart murmur on a routine examination. However some infants are critically ill in the first weeks of life.

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital has assembled a team of doctors, nurses and other health professionals who are specially trained to diagnose and treat infants, children and young adults with both congenital and acquired heart disease.

All our doctors use state-of-the art techniques to diagnose and treat all forms of congenital and acquired heart disease in infants, children and adolescents. Our team is highly expert in echocardiography, including fetal and transesophegal echo, and along with Stanford engineers, is developing new techniques in 3-D echo, 3-D electron beam CT scan and MRI angiography. With these new technologies, most children no longer require invasive procedures such as cardiac catheterization for diagnosis.

Our team includes specialists in interventional cardiac catheterization to correct many forms of congenital heart disease without surgery. These procedures include balloon angioplasties, catheter closure of congenital heart defects, and stenting of blocked arteries and veins.

Our Pediatric Arrhythmia Center, one of the largest in the United States, is at the forefront of the latest advances in the diagnosis and management of children with complex heart rhythm disturbances.

Our Pediatric Advanced Therapies Center specializes in the latest medical treatments for children with heart failure and our Pediatric Heart Transplant program is the nation's oldest and most experienced program dedicated for children.

Our program in Preventive Pediatric Cardiology specializes in the treatment of children with hypercholesterolemia and hypertension. We also have a state-of-the-art Pediatric Cardiopulmonary Exercise Lab which allows us to take noninvasive measurements of a child's cardiovascular, metabolic or pulmonary activity.

If your child needs surgery, our Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery team provides a full array of surgical procedures and proven techniques, ranging from the repair of minor heart problems to the most complex forms of congenital heart disease in the newborn. We are on the cutting edge of researching, developing and using innovative surgical techniques such as minimally invasive cardiac surgery that improve outcomes, reduce length of stay, improve cosmetic results, and reduce pain and trauma to the child.
 
The Children's Heart Center relies on contributions from the community to care for our young patients here at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. If you would like to contribute to this program, please follow this link and fill in Heart Center under "Gift Amount" in the gift designation box. 

Our Team
Learn more about our physicians, nurses and other team members.

Clinics
Find out about the clinics affiliated with the Children's Heart Center.

Research
From robotics in the operating room to fetal cardiovascular intervention, learn about our latest clinical research projects.