A surgical procedure to correct a heart defect called Fallot's tetralogy, where the heart's structure is abnormal and doesn't pump blood correctly.
From Fallot (named after French physician Étienne-Louis Arthur Fallot who described the condition in 1888) + -tomy (from Greek tome meaning 'cut'). The term combines the physician's name with the surgical suffix indicating an incision or cutting procedure.
This operation is one of medicine's great triumphs—before the 1940s, babies born with Fallot's tetralogy were called 'blue babies' because their skin turned blue from lack of oxygen. The first successful surgical fix was a game-changer that saved thousands of lives.
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