Rare Condition in Newborn Leads to Interventional Heart Catheterization

A young child’s life was dramatically improved thanks to an interventional cardiology procedure performed at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital.

Grayson Jonker was born with multiple pulmonary arteriovenous malformations or AVMs. The rare condition involves an abnormal connection between an artery and a vein in the lung which causes blood to travel through the lung without being oxygenated.

Grayson’s medical team knew something wasn’t right immediately following his birth at an area hospital. He was quickly transferred to Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital where Donald Malcolm, MD, diagnosed the potentially life-threatening condition. Grayson underwent a heart catheterization at just two days old with interventional cardiologist Ronald Grifka, MD.

After placing a catheter in Grayson’s lung artery, Grifka discovered the vascular malformations were very large. He worked for five hours in the pediatric heart catheterization lab to correct the lung malformations placing five coils and five plugs in Grayson’s lungs to reroute the blood flow.

“In my 23 years as a pediatric cardiologist, I have never seen a patient as young as Grayson with an AVM and no children his age have been reported in medical literature,” said Grifka, division chief, pediatric cardiology, Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital and Spectrum Health Medical Group. “We knew he wasn’t receiving enough oxygen and needed to perform a heart catheterization quickly to create oxygenated blood flow throughout his small body.”

Grayson spent six days in the neonatal intensive care unit following the heart catheterization. Grifka says Grayson’s prognosis looks very good although he will need occasional follow up heart catheterization procedures as he matures.

“Grayson’s procedure was a challenge due to his small size and multiple vascular malformations but the alternative could have been very traumatic,” added Grifka. “The alternative to heart catheterization was to remove the abnormal part of the lung but that could lead to scoliosis and other health complications.”

Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital, a member of Spectrum Health, is a Grand Rapids-based hospital serving children throughout Michigan. A teaching hospital, it includes nearly 200 pediatric physicians with training in providing medical and surgical care to children in more than 40 pediatric specialties. Visit helendevoschildrens.org to learn more.