Meeting the Editorial Board Member of ASJ: Dr. Raghav A. Murthy

Posted On 2025-02-18 08:55:04


Raghav A. Murthy1, Jin Ye Yeo2

1Division of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, Medical City Children’s Hospital, Dallas, Texas, USA; 2ASJ AME Publishing Company

Correspondence to: Jin Ye Yeo. ASJ Editorial Office, AME Publishing Company. Email: asj@amegroups.com

This interview can be cited as: Murthy RA, Yeo JY. Meeting the Editorial Board Member of ASJ: Dr. Raghav A. Murthy. AME Surg J. 2025. Available from: https://asj.amegroups.org/post/view/meeting-the-editorial-board-member-of-asj-dr-raghav-a-murthy.


Expert introduction

Dr. Raghav A. Murthy (Figure 1) is currently a congenital cardiac surgeon at Medical City Children’s Hospital, Dallas, Texas, USA. Prior to moving to Dallas, he was an Assistant Professor of Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital and Director of the Pediatric Heart Transplantation Program and ECMO at the Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Heart Center. He has extensive experience treating congenital heart disease in all age groups, neonates, infants, children, and adults with congenital heart disease. He is also very experienced in temporary and durable mechanical circulatory support devices and heart transplantation. Under his leadership, the pediatric heart transplant program at Mount Sinai was the best in the northeast.

He has special interests and expertise in pediatric airway surgery and complex lung surgery in children. These include segmental tracheal resections, slide tracheoplasties, complex carinal resections and reconstructions, and combined repair of children with concomitant airway and heart defects.

Dr. Murthy has authored or co-authored more than 65 articles in peer-reviewed journals, 5 editorials, 18 published abstracts, 20 book chapters, more than 10 surgical videos, and more than 110 oral and poster presentations at national and international meetings. His clinical and research interests are focused on surgical management of congenital heart disease in people of all age groups, complex neonatal and infant heart surgery, ECMO, mechanical assist devices, and transplantation of thoracic organs.

Figure 1 Dr. Raghav A. Murthy


Interview

ASJ: Could you share what inspired you to pursue a career in cardiothoracic surgery, and specifically pediatric cardiac surgery?

Dr. Murthy: While in medical school, Dr. Saroja Bharati, a world-renowned congenital cardiac morphologist and pathologist, visited us. She brought with her multiple heart specimens with various complex congenital heart defects. I was absolutely amazed and fascinated by the complexity of the anatomy, pathophysiology, and the surgical acumen it would take to fix such defects. My love for children, compounded by this fascination with congenital heart disease, made pediatric cardiac surgery an obvious career choice! 

ASJ: You have co-authored over 65 articles and multiple book chapters. What do you consider to be the most impactful publication or research project you have worked on so far? 

Dr. Murthy: There are several publications I think that are noteworthy, but if I were to pick one, I think it would be on the study of homograft pericardium and its use in congenital cardiac surgery with a look at the long-term outcomes, which was published in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery (1). Homograft pericardium is an excellent but underutilized patch material at our disposal. In this study, the largest study published ever, we studied the long-term outcomes of 276 patches implanted into 134 consecutive patients. We showed excellent 5- and 10-year outcomes. This study has rekindled a lot of interest in the surgical community as the search for the “holy grail’ of patches is still on!

I would also like to briefly mention a recent publication about organ preservation and heart transplantation (2). Our experience using the SherpaPak system for pediatric heart preservation has been very positive, with excellent post-operative outcomes and no mortality. This is the first such publication in the pediatric realm, and I am very positive that this trend will catch on rapidly in the pediatric heart transplant world.

ASJ: Could you provide an overview of the current publications in pediatric thoracic, lung, and tracheal surgery? Are there any technological advancements or surgical techniques that show significant promise?

Dr. Murthy: I would like to list a few of my publications in the abovementioned area:

  1. Yang M, Derespina K, Grant C, et al. Bronchopleural fistula management in a pediatric patient requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Perfusion 2024; Jul 26:2676591241268367.
  2. Sengupta A, Brigger M, Lamberti JJ, et al. Recurrent Pediatric Respiratory Distress From a Challenging Vascular Anomaly: The Uncrossing Operation for Circumflex Aorta. JACC Case Rep 2024;29(8):102305.
  3. Aziz J, Murthy R. Mediastinal ectopic thyroid tissue: a rare but important diagnosis. J Thorac Dis 2023;15(12):6388-6389.
  4. Aziz J, Murthy R. Idiopathic tracheal stenosis and hormone receptors. J Thorac Dis 2023;15(8):4146-4147.
  5. Murthy R. The key to successful long-segment tracheal resections. J Thorac Dis 2022;14(11):4218-4219.
  6. Sengupta A, Williams EE, Dekio F, et al. Pneumonectomy for Idiopathic Fibrosing Mediastinitis Mimicking Neoplasm in a Child. Ann Thorac Surg 2022;113(6):e445-e447.
  7. Sengupta A, Murthy RA. Congenital tracheal stenosis & associated cardiac anomalies: operative management & techniques. J Thorac Dis 2020;12(3):1184-1193.

The above are just a few of my publications over the last couple of years. They represent a cross section of a broad section of pediatric lung, esophageal, and tracheal pathologies. There have been a lot of recent technological advancements in this field. For example, we often encounter children with severe pneumonias and bacterial lung infections, causing significant air leaks and bronchopleural fistulas. These kids often require support with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) while the lung leaks seal with conservative medical management. The development of endobronchial valves and their implementation in pediatrics now allow these leaks to heal up quicker and wean from ECMO. This needs more study but is a welcome addition to our armamentarium.

Another area of interest to me is congenital tracheal stenosis. This can often coexist with congenital heart disease. The timing of repair can be challenging and often has to be approached in a multidisciplinary manner, taking into account all the other coexisting congenital malformations. The techniques for repair of complex congenital tracheal stenosis are still evolving, and refining these techniques is very exciting to me and my area of research.

ASJ: How do you see the future of pediatric cardiac surgery evolving in the next few years? Are there any emerging trends that you are particularly interested in?

Dr. Murthy: There are 2 particular areas that I think we will have to pay a lot of attention to in the next coming years. One, we have gotten very good with the initial palliation of single ventricle patients. What we are not very good at is managing these patients long-term. There are not very good options for mechanical circulatory support for patients palliated with bidirectional Glenn or Fontan physiology. We are also in the very preliminary stages of understanding Fontan-associated liver disease. Heart and heart-liver transplantation for such end-stage single ventricle palliated kids is still evolving. The indications, timing, and strategies to perform these operations safely are still being investigated.

Secondly, the field of adult congenital heart disease will explode. We have a tsunami of patients with repaired/palliated congenital heart disease entering adulthood. Caring for these patients requires a completely different skill set. Fellowship training programs are still evolving in this realm. I foresee a lot of research and advancement in this area of congenital cardiac surgery.

ASJ: How has your experience been as an Editorial Board Member of ASJ?

Dr. Murthy: I have had a fantastic experience serving on the editorial board! The journal staff are phenomenal. They are extremely hard-working and go above and beyond to help the board members out. Joining the editorial board has been one of my best decisions!

ASJ: As an Editorial Board Member, what are your expectations and aspirations for ASJ?

Dr. Murthy: I think the goal is to make ASJ the best journal out there! It is rapidly gaining popularity, and I expect it to be the ‘go to’ publication in the near future.


References

  1. Gluck TM, Lamberti JJ, El-Said H, et al. Long-term Results Using Glutaraldehyde-treated Homograft Pericardium in Congenital Heart Surgery. Ann Thorac Surg 2022;113(1):182-190.
  2. Sather A, Marshall M, Murthy R, et al. SherpaPak Cardiac Transport System: Experience in Pediatric Heart Transplantation. Clin Transplant 2025;39(2):e70095.