Editorial Comment What Will Be Left for the Surgeons?

For many years, pediatric cardiologists, interventional radiologists, and others have dreamed of and developed methods of treating various forms of congenital heart disease in a nonsurgical manner [1,2]. The rapid evolu-tion of technology in the field over the last 5–10 years has resulted in successful transcatheter treatment of a wide range of intracardiac shunts, with excellent initial and medium-term results and low complication rates [3–9]. Even unusual forms of congenital and/or acquired de-fects have proven to be amenable to transcatheter inter-vention [10,11]. Some 40 years ago, fistulous connections from the pulmonary artery to the left atrium were described [12]. Although symptoms can occur in infancy, requiring early intervention, this is not the typical presentation. In pas