Stent Successful

Roscoe went in for his stenting in the cardiac catheterization lab around 4pm and emerged around 9pm. He stayed stable through the entire process, which was great to hear since he got unstable at the end of the last catheterization. Here is a picture of the team wheeling him back to his room after they were done:

After they finished, Dr. Moore explained what happened during the procedure. He said that they spent a few hours taking measurements so that they'd be able to compare the effectiveness of the stent. They also spent a good amount of time exploring so that they'd be adequately prepared to insert the stent. They had difficulty locating the opening for Roscoe's upper pulmonary vein (which is now the size of a pinhole) so they only stented the lower vein. Below are pictures which show the vein before it was stented and after:

Before

After

You can see the stent as the hatch marks between two dots along the catheter tube near the center of each image, in the thickest part of the vein. Once inserted, they used a balloon to expand the stent so that it will hold his pulmonary vein open. In the pictures above, the upper picture is taken from Roscoe's front (you can see the bones of his ribcage and spine). The lower picture is taken from Roscoe's side, with his spine along the right side of the image and his heart as the large, dark blob in the center.

They said that they saw immediate improvement (which was expected) from the stent, with Roscoe's pulmonary vein pressure dropping from the mid 30's to around 15 (where 12 is normal). Below is an image of Roscoe's pulmonary arteries, which will be the focus of treatments in the coming days:

These arteries carry blood from his heart to his lungs. The "trunk" portion of his arteries looks somewhat normal, but the "branches" portion is much smaller than it should be (which heavily influences his chronic lung disease). Now that his pulmonary veins (which carry blood back from the lungs to the heart) have been widened, Dr. Fineman will attempt to widen Roscoe's pulmonary arteries for increased stability at lower breathing support. If these arteries respond well (which it seems like was happening prior to this catheterization), then he will be scheduled for dangerous heart surgery to give a long-term repair to both pulmonary veins.