Teaching the "hybrid approach": a novel swine model of muscular ventricular septal defect.

This report describes a reproducible swine model for creating muscular ventricular septal defects (VSDs). The model not only facilitates the development and modification of hybrid techniques for closing muscular VSDs, but also serves as a teaching tool that allows operators to become accustomed to the specific technical requirements necessary when using the hybrid approach to perform periventricular VSD device closure. The authors' institutional experience using this novel animal model is presented.