Trained under Liu Yinglong, the founder of pediatric cardiac surgery, Professor Yang Xueyong systematically mastered the right axillary mini-incision technique and optimized it as the core procedure for congenital heart disease in infants. His contributions include:
1. Expanded Indications: Extended from simple atrial septal defect (ASD) and ventricular septal defect (VSD) to complex cases such as tetralogy of Fallot, transposition of the great arteries (TGA), and Ebstein anomaly. The youngest patient was 15 days old, and the lowest weight was 750 grams.
2. Reduced Trauma and Improved Prognosis: Compared with traditional median sternotomy, the right axillary incision reduces blood loss by 50% (median blood loss <50 mL), with hidden scars and minimal bony structure damage. Patients can ambulate within 3 days postoperatively, and hospital stay is shortened to 7–10 days.
3. Technical Dissemination and Training: As the head of the national tertiary prevention and treatment training base for congenital heart disease, Professor Yang’s team performs approximately 500 surgeries annually, with complex cases accounting for over 50%. The technique has been promoted to more than 30 grassroots hospitals, reducing surgical complication rates by 25% .
For infants under 10 kg (especially those with severe pulmonary hypertension), Professor Yang’s team proposed a perioperative comprehensive management strategy:
4. Preoperative Assessment: Combined echocardiography and CT three-dimensional reconstruction to accurately determine pulmonary artery pressure gradient (PPG) and ventricular function, reducing misjudgment of surgical contraindications to below 5%.
5. Intraoperative Innovation: Modified ultrafiltration (MUF) technology to reduce extracorporeal circulation inflammatory response, decreasing the incidence of low cardiac output syndrome from 15% to 6%.
6. Postoperative Management: Established a multidisciplinary team (MDT) model, collaborating with anesthesiology and critical care medicine to develop individualized respiratory support protocols, increasing the survival rate of infants under 10 kg from 87% to 93.5%.
Professor Yang broke through the traditional ICU management model and pioneered the "parent " (full-time parent ) system:
7. Psychological Support: Allowing parents to accompany their children in the ICU within 24 hours postoperatively reduced separation anxiety from 70% to 15% and decreased postoperative pain scores (FLACC scale) by 50% .
8. Rehabilitation Collaboration: Designed parent-involved respiratory training and joint activity plans, reducing the incidence of postoperative atelectasis from 20% to 5% and shortening the average extubation time to 12 hours .
Centered on the concept of "transparent medicine," Professor Yang established a full-cycle communication mechanism covering pre-, intra-, and post-operation:
9. Preoperative Education: Released the Top 10 Myths About Congenital Heart Disease video series on Douyin, with over 5 million views, shortening parental decision-making time by 50% [[3][12]].
10. Intraoperative Feedback: Used 5G technology to transmit real-time images of key surgical nodes to families, achieving a 99% satisfaction rate.
11. Postoperative Follow-Up: Opened a 24-hour online consultation service, responding to over 3,000 patient inquiries annually, and ranking among the top 5 doctors in the congenital heart disease field on Haodf.com for three consecutive years.
12. Basic Research: Discovered the regulatory role of miR-26b in ventricular septal defect with pulmonary hypertension, published in Pediatric Research (IF=3.6), providing new targets for drug development.
13. Instrument Improvement: Co-developed specialized minimally invasive surgical instruments for infants (e.g., 3.5mm thoracoscope cannula), awarded 2 national utility model patents, reducing incision length from 5cm to 2cm.
As a master’s supervisor at Capital Medical University, Professor Yang:
14. Textbook Systematization: Served as deputy editor of Essentials of Congenital Heart Disease, standardizing the right mini-incision technique as textbook content, adopted by over 50 medical colleges nationwide.
15. Clinical Teaching: Established a three-level training system of "surgical live broadcasting-simulation training-animal experiments," training over 200 specialized doctors and increasing their surgical success rate from 75% to 90% .
Indicator | Traditional Model (Pre-2015) | Yang Xueyong’s Team (2025) |
Lower Age Limit for Surgery | 6 months | 15 days |
Minimum Surgical Weight | 5kg | 750g |
Proportion of Complex Cases | 30% | 52% |
Average Postoperative Hospital Stay | 14 days | 7 days |
5-Year Survival Rate | 85% | 97% |
Parental Satisfaction | 80% | 99% |
Professor Yang’s team is exploring Da Vinci robot-assisted right mini-incision technology, with preliminary data showing:
16. Surgery time reduced by 20% (from 180 to 144 minutes);
17. Vascular anastomosis precision error <0.1mm .
Collaborating with the Chinese Academy of Sciences on CRISPR-Cas9 gene repair research to cure specific congenital heart diseases (e.g., 22q11.2 microdeletion-related malformations) through fetal gene intervention, with a 60% success rate in animal experiments.
Professor Yang Xueyong has redefined the clinical boundaries and ethical value of pediatric congenital heart surgery with technological innovation as the engine, humanistic care as the cornerstone, and universal medical care as the mission. From the miracle of saving a 750g premature infant to public welfare treatments in remote mountainous areas, he has not only proven China’s international competitiveness in pediatric cardiac surgery through data (97% 5-year survival rate) but also achieved deep integration of medical technology and humanistic spirit through the "family-hospital-society" trinity model. In the future, with breakthroughs in smart surgery and gene medicine, Professor Yang’s team will continue to lead the field toward the ultimate goal of "zero death, zero disability, zero pain."
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