Coarctation of the Aorta (CoA) is the narrowing, shriveling, compression or stricturing of the blood vessel called the aorta. The aorta is the main trunk of the arterial blood system of the body. (Carries blood with oxygen in it from the lungs where the blood picked up the oxygen).



The aorta is made up of the ascending aorta (made up of two branches), the arch of the aorta (has 3 branches), the descending aorta made up of two branches (the thoracic and abdominal aorta), thoracic aorta (chest area) and abdominal aorta (below the diaphragm). All parts of the aorta carry blood that is oxygenated to major organs of the body and toward the brain and down toward the feet.
Coarctation of the Aorta (CoA) is found in babies, infants and is seen in adults who were never diagnosed with this congenital heart defect. It is hard to distinguish if a baby has a coarctation of the aorta and or a patent ductus arteriosis because they can occur together.
Coarctation of the Aorta (CoA) is also seen with other birth defects such as those seen in VATER (what we now call Carrots) and with multiple congenital cardiovascular lesions (heart defects). Examples of this are coarctation of the aorta (CoA) with a patent ductus arteriosis (PDA), hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), atrial septal defects (ASD), ventricular defects with different sizes and types, tetrology of fallot (ToF), Taussig-Bing anomaly, tricuspid atresia, subaortic stenosis and aortic stenosis and others.
Coarctation of the aorta can be seen as an isolated heart defect (heart defect by itself) or with multiple congenital heart defects and with multiple congential birth defects such as seen in the VATER group of birth defects.
The history of heart surgery and who did the first operation for the heart defect called Coarctation of the Aorta (CoA) is of great interest because of what I have come to learn. To find out that competition in the medical field is just as competitive as it is in business and sports or for that matter any competition you can imagine is really fascinating.
To be the first in most anything is to reap the benefits that mankind can offer and it lasts a lifetime and for that matter it becomes part of history as is the story in the history of Robert E. Gross and his patient Lorraine Sweeney who survived the first successful heart surgery for the heart defect called Patent Ductus Arteriosis (PDA) and opened the world to the reality of heart surgery.
As the story goes Dr. Robert Edward Gross soon after his break through in heart surgery for the heart defect called patent ductus arteriosis he was also working on another crippling heart defect called coarctation of the aorta. Coarctation of the aorta is a narrowing of the aorta so the blood and pressure within the heart is affected.
Dr. Gross had to be able to reproduce this birth defect the same way he did for first heart defect he corrected patent ductus arterosis and this was first done in animals and after learning how to do this on animals he then tried it on a human.
Remember that creating the birth defects had to be done first in animals and the use of animals was not looked upon very favorably back then or even now. This work on the use on animals is called vivisection and without it medicine and heart surgery would never be where it is today and millions of people around the world would have died or lived horrible lives.