Aortic valve repair in pediatrics—time to swing the pendulum back?

In 1983 came the report of the first balloon dilatation of the aortic valve. Since that time, the treatment of congenital aortic valve stenosis in the pediatric age has been mainly in the hands of interventional cardiologists. The arguments to favour this approach have been a less invasive procedure and cosmetic superiority. In the majority of the cases, there has been no consensual discussion on this topic and the reason for the predominance of interventional catheterization has been that this population has been captive because their cardiologist is their first point of contact. There has been in recent years several reports highlighting the superiority of the outcomes achieved by surgery over those obtained after balloon dilatation (1,2). So, has the pendulum swung yet