To all of you in the United States…

Happy Independence Day!!!

On behalf of Robyn (my wife) and Ethan (our 13-week old son), may your celebration be safe and full of friends, family, picnics, barbecues, hot dogs, hamburgers, and, of course… fireworks!!!

Keep on tickin!

P.S. To leave a comment, please click here.

I just received a very appropriate email from Barbara about her mother who is suffering from severe heart valve stenosis.

Barbara writes, “Dear Adam – My mother, who is a relatively active lady at 82 years old, was recently diagnosed as needing aortic valve replacement surgery. I’m obviously concerned and somewhat frightened given the invasive nature of this operation and her age. I just have to ask… Is 82 too old for heart valve surgery? Thanks, Barbara”

Considering the aging of our population, this is a great question for all of us to learn from. To start… Did you know that 13% of people age 75 or older in the United States have at least moderate heart valve disease? That said, as the baby boomers continue to age, I imagine this question is going to be asked by many, many, many, many sons and daughters in the future.

As for my research about octogenerians (people over eighty) and heart surgery, consider the following:

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It is one of the most important decisions for patients as they prepare for heart valve replacement surgery. That question is, “Which type of heart valve replacement device should I choose?”

There are several considerations that patients and their caregivers must evaluate relative to this question. Such considerations include durability, patient age, ongoing drug therapy, lifestyle, valve noises, activity levels, etc. I specifically remember creating a pros-and-cons list with Robyn (my wife) for each option prior to my own aortic valve replacement surgery.

Medtronic Mosaic Pig Valve Replacement

Another patient consideration specific to mechanical and tissue valve selection is failure rates. As you can read in prior blogs, patients want to avoid valve replacement re-operations should the device fail while functioning in the human heart.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate published heart valve failure rates specific to each type of pig valve, cow valve, mechanical valve and homografts.

However, I just reviewed a very interesting study published by The Washington School Of Medicine about pig valve replacement failure rates that made my eyebrows jump to the top of my forehead. Here are the highlights from that study:

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As you may have seen at our new heart valve surgeon database, each month we feature a cardiac surgeon as our “Heart Valve Surgeon Of The Month”.  The neat part…This surgeon is nominated by a former heart valve surgery patient. Last month, I nominated Dr. Vaughn Starnes as our first featured surgeon.

Who will it be this month? Well… That is up to you!!! That’s right, you get to nominate your surgeon!!!

To nominate your surgeon, simply leave a comment or send me an email at adam@heart-valve-surgery.com. All you have to do is jot down one or two paragraphs about what makes your surgeon so great. It’s that easy!

I look forward to reading your nominations.

Keep on tickin!