I recently received an interesting question from Paul about aortic stenosis and nutrition. Paul writes, “Hi Adam – I’m in my 40′s and just diagnosed with a severely leaking aortic valve. I was told I need a mechanical valve or I will drop dead in 2 to 3 years. I do not want to take Coumadin. Is it possible for patients to enter a natural program — via a qualified nutritionalist — which may actually stimulate tissue growth around the valve, thus fixing the cause rather than treating the symptoms?”

Aortic Valve Stenosis – Narrowing Heart Valve

While I have my own thoughts on this topic, I wanted to get an expert opinion for Paul. That said, I contacted Dr. Marc Gerdisch, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at St. Francis Heart Center in Indiana. As many of you know, Dr. Gerdisch is a specialist for valvular treatment and cardiac tissue repair.

Dr. Marc Gerdisch – St. Francis Heart Center

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Last Thursday, I found myself at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland, California. My reasons for traveling to Northern California were two-fold. First, I wanted to meet Dr. Junaid Khan, a leading minimally invasive heart valve surgeon on the West Coast. Second, I was asked to speak at a a special, educational seminar titled, “For People With Heart Murmurs”.

Dr. Junaid Khan and Adam Pick at “For People With Heart Murmurs” Seminar

My first meeting of the day was with Dr. Khan. I quickly learned several interesting facts about the surgeon who trained at UCLA Medical Center.

• Dr. Khan performed over 250 cardiac procedures in 2010.
• Over 60% of his surgeries are valve-related. Dr. Khan tends to perform more mitral valve surgery than aortic valve surgery.
• Dr. Khan’s mitral valve repair rate is about 70% while the national average is about 42%.
• Alta Bates Summit Medical Center was the only cardiac center to receive a “three-star” rating in California from Consumer Reports.
• Dr. Khan is a dedicated father and husband. Currently, Dr. Khan coaches the baseball teams for his two sons.

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Talk about a great coincidence… Just a few minutes after receiving this patient question, Dr. Lars Svensson — the Director of the Aorta Center at the Cleveland Clinic –  walked up to my booth at the 47th annual Society of Thoracic Surgeons meeting. That said, here is Dr. Svensson’s response to the question, “What are the key indicators that a diseased aortic valve can be repaired not replaced?”

To learn more about Dr. Lars Svensson, please visit his surgeon profile page by clicking here. For those of you who are hearing impaired, I have provided a video transcript below.

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Advances in medical technology for valvular treatment continue to evolve rapidly. Recently, I learned more about the use of Extracelluar Matrix (ECM) for heart valve repair and remodeling from Dr. Marc Gerdisch, the chief of cardiothoracic surgery at St. Francis Heart Center in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 2008, Doctor Gerdisch was the world’s first surgeon to use ECM to repair a damaged heart valve.

Here is my interview with Dr. Gerdisch. This discussion was in direct response to Scott’s question, “Will patients be able to grow their own heart valves in the future?”

To help you learn more about Extracellular Matrix and Dr. Gerdisch, I have provided an additional video about ECM and a transcript of this interview below.

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Hi everybody,

Since launching our patient and caregiver social network last year, HeartValveJournals.com has undergone extraordinary growth.

To give you some idea as to how fast this online community has grown, consider that over the past 6 months our servers have “overloaded” three times. On one day alone, over 10,000 patients and caregivers visited this unique website. So, in order to ensure continuous service, I recently upgraded our servers to a dedicated system. Thus far, the new servers are doing fantastic!!!

HeartValveJournals.com — New Design!

You should also know that we plan on taking HeartValveJournals.com into Phase II during 2011. Over the next 12 months, you will see several new features and functions to enhance the communication and interaction of heart valve patients and caregivers around the world. To start… We have given the site a completely new design. During testing, this new design performed favorably — specific to usability and readability.

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