Esophageal and Thoracic Surgery Program

For children who have disease and disorder of the lungs, mediastinum and esophagus, the Pediatric Esophageal and Thoracic Surgery Program at Children's National Hospital is dedicated to improving your child’s quality of life by using the latest diagnostic, surgical and medical techniques.

Why Should You Choose Children’s National for Pediatric Esophageal and Thoracic Surgery?

We are committed to providing the highest standard of care while delivering a treatment plan tailored to meet your child’s needs. In addition, we offer:

• Expertise. We provide access to a renowned team of expert pediatric surgeons that offer innovative and minimally invasive surgical treatments, as well as traditional surgical procedures. Learn more.
• Comprehensive care. We offer quicker and more precise diagnoses, which provides your family with more insight and helps us determine the most effective surgical treatments and more promising outcomes.
• Family-centered care. We offer support for families to improve their child’s quality of life through a shared decision-making process.
• Advanced treatment options. Children’s National is one of the only children’s hospitals in the country to offer the option of the peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM) procedure as a primary intervention for children with esophageal achalasia and pediatric gastroparesis. Our pediatric surgeons, Timothy Kane, M.D., and Mikael Petrosyan, M.D., combined perform more of these procedures than any other pediatric surgeons in the United States.

Esophageal and Thoracic Surgery at Children’s National

The general and thoracic surgical experts at Children’s National Hospital have vast experience performing esophageal surgery for children. The types of surgery that we perform include:

• Thoracic surgery. Surgery is performed on the chest wall and organs contained within the thoracic or chest cavity.
• Foregut surgery. This surgery addresses conditions of the esophagus, stomach and proximal small intestine. The surgery can be performed traditionally or can be minimally invasive.
  • Peroral endoscopic myotomy (POEM). This safe and effective new technique of surgery treats pediatric achalasia in children. During surgery, only a single incision is done in the esophagus and no incision in the abdomen. POEM can be performed at any point in treatment, even if other therapies or surgical interventions (including a Heller myotomy) have been previously performed. It can also be repeated if needed. Children who had POEM surgery reported less pain and often have shorter hospital stays following the procedure.
• Gastric surgery. Our team works closely with gastrointestinal surgeons to address conditions of the stomach and duodenum. 

Contact Information

For more information, to schedule an appointment or follow-up on a referral to the Pediatric Esophageal and Thoracic Surgery Program, please call 202 476-2151 or email us.