Adam’s Heart Valve Surgery Blog

It is amazing to see the physical, emotional and spiritual transformation that occurs in patients before-and-after heart valve surgery.  For example, here is the patient story of Suzi Epstein, an asymptomatic patient who was unexpectedly diagnosed with severe mitral regurgitation.

Suzi Epstein (Heart Valve Surgery Patient)

 
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I never imagined this… But, thank the heavens for the fun and humor of patients in our online support community.

Doug Fults (Heart Valve Surgery Patient at Cleveland Clinic)

 
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Big News! In case you missed it, the new SMART Clinical Trial just revealed important treatment advantages for women with aortic stenosis who undergo a Medtronic Evolut TAVR.

To learn more about this landmark study, I traveled to the Women’s Heart Health Congressional Day in Washington, D.C. to interview Dr. Roxana Mehran, a principal investigator of the SMART Clinical Trial.  Click here to watch my interview with Dr. Roxana Mehran about the SMART Clinical Trial, TAVR and women’s heart health. 

Many thanks to Dr. Mehran for sharing these fascinating new insights about the SMART Clinical Trial specific to women’s hearts and TAVR.

Related Links:

• See the new Medtronic TAVR Procedure Educational Microsite
• Research 50 Leading Heart Teams the Specialize in Medtronic TAVR
• Free eBook: What 7 Facts Should You Know About TAVR?

Keep on tickin!
Adam

Hearing from patients in our Community about their heart valve surgery success stories remains one of my favorite parts of running this website.  This time, I heard from Lisa Letizio after her heart valve surgery.

Lisa (Heart Valve Surgery Patient)

 
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In a recent patient survey, we learned that 53% of patients are not aware of the critical role that an interventional cardiologist plays within a heart team.

So, to help you learn about the importance of interventional cardiology for the lifetime treatment of heart valve disease, we just spent an entire day with Dr. Raj Makkar, a world-renowned interventional cardiologist who has performed over 7,000 transcatheter heart valve procedures that did not require an incision to the patient’s chest or ribs.

Click here to see our new video, “A ‘Day In The Life’ with Dr. Raj Makkar”.

Many thanks to Dr. Raj Makkar for the special invitation to learn more about interventional cardiology and the use of transcatheter devices for the treatment of diseases including aortic stenosis and mitral regurgitation.

Keep on tickin!
Adam

I just received a great patient story from David Monasterski who is a new member of our community.  After connecting with David at our YouTube Channel, he shared a very insightful story with me about bacterial endocarditis, aortic valve leaflet holes, the importance of second opinions, his weight loss journey and more.

David – Before & After Heart Valve Surgery

 
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Together, our patient community has a learned a lot about calcified aortic heart valves over the years. As you may know, a calcified heart valve can lead to severe aortic stenosis which is an under-diagnosed and life-threatening form of heart disease. That said, one of the big questions I continue to get from patients is, “What does a calcified aortic valve look like?”

Thanks to Dr. Neelan Doolabh, a leading minimally-invasive heart valve surgeon at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas, here are five pictures taken during recent aortic valve replacement surgeries performed by Dr. Doolabh.  For example, that is a tri-leaflet aortic valve that has severe calcification all over the leaflets.

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I am incredibly happy to share that… Thanks to the support of this community and our amazing partner, Gift of Life International, we just helped Nsimire, a courageous 8-year old girl, undergo a life-saving cardiac procedure in Uganda!!!

Nsimire (Heart Surgery Patient at Uganda Heart Institute)

 
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Hey Everybody!

Given all the great patient questions we have received about the Ross Procedure used to treat aortic valve disease, we just posted a new educational video with Dr. Ismail El-Hamamsy.  As you may know, Dr. El-Hamamsy is a world-renowned expert that has performed over 800 Ross Procedures.  If you are thinking about the Ross Procedure as a potential treatment option for your aortic stenosis, aortic regurgitation and/or bicuspid aortic valve, you may want to see this fascinating new video with the latest medical insights and research about the Ross Procedure.

Click here to see Dr. Ismail El-Hamamsy share his 4 must-know facts about the Ross Procedure.

Keep on tickin!
Adam

Heart disease kills one in three women every year. That said, we are doing our best to raise awareness to this troublesome issue by speaking at congressional meetings in Washington, DC, supporting the “Go Red for Women” awareness initiative, and posting educational content specific to women’s heart health.

Unfortunately… We just learned new research which further widens the gender differences specific to cardiac care for women and men. According to a report by University of Michigan Health just published in JAMA Surgery, women are more likely than men to die after heart surgery due to complications.

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I’m excited to share that the date and the headliner for the annual “Rock From the Heart” event has been announced. This special community event will be held February 22, 2025, at the Palace Theatre in Saint Paul, Minnesota. This event supports Rock From the Heart’s mission to raise awareness of aortic and heart valve disease while bringing the community together through the power of music.

 
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[Update: Great news! Our patient webinar, “Advances in Bicuspid Aortic Valve Therapy” with the Mayo Clinic was fantastic.  To see a video replay of the webinar, click here or you can download the free ebook at this link.]

I’m excited to announce that our LIVE and FREE patient education series continue this Thursday, October 10th, at 6pm EST, with a special webinar, “Advances in Bicuspid Aortic Valve Therapy”. Featured speakers include Dr. Kristen Sell-Dottin, Division Chair of Cardiac Surgery, Dr. Bryan Barrus, Cardiac Surgeon, and Dr. John Haney, Cardiac Surgeon, at Mayo Clinic.

 
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The patients in our heart valve community never cease to amaze me.  I could ramble on about what I just received in my inbox from Cuauhtemoc Velazquez, a patient from Toronto, Canada. Instead, I will simply provide you this wonderful opportunity to watch an extraordinary video that Cuauhtemoc shared with me titled, “10 Spiritual Lessons I Learned From Heart Surgery”.

 
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Since starting HeartValveSurgery.com nearly twenty years ago, I have learned a lot about the heart. However, it was not until I received this email from David Cattell, a heart valve patient in our community, that I became aware of an under-diagnosed condition known as cardiac amyloidosis. Many thanks to David for sharing his story and his research below.

David Cattell with Dr. Basar Sareyyupoglu (Mayo Clinic Florida)

 
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In a little over a decade, the utility of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) for the minimally-invasive treatment of severe aortic stenosis has exploded.  The number of TAVR therapies has soared from 4,600 in 2012 to over 100,000 cases in 2023, according to reports.

With the transformative progress TAVR has undergone in this short time, it’s no surprise that we received a question about the future of TAVR from Michael, a member of our patient community, who asked, “What advances do you foresee in the TAVR procedure in the next 15 years?” We met with Dr. Brent New at the Annual Meeting of The Society for Thoracic Surgeons to answer Michael’s question. Dr. New is the Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Methodist Healthcare in San Antonio, Texas, and gave some interesting insights into possible TAVR innovations coming in the future.

 
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Dear Patients and Friends,

As you know… Making a difference in the lives of heart valve patients has nothing to do with a website ranking. Alternatively, “making a difference” has everything to do with helping others in their time of need.

That said, I am honored to share that HeartValveSurgery.com has been named the #1 website on Feedspot’s “50 Best Cardiac Surgery Blogs & Website” for the fourth consecutive year.

 
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Many patients in our community have been diagnosed with multiple types of valvular disease and complex cardiac conditions including atrial fibrillation, coronary artery disease and aortic aneurysms. For that reason, I was very excited when Dr. Edward Soltesz and Dr. Anthony Zaki from the Cleveland Clinic agreed to participate in a “Surgeon Roundtable” about high-risk heart valve surgery.

To see our new Surgeon Roundtable with Dr. Soltesz and Dr. Zaki about high-risk and complex heart valve surgery, please click here.

Many thanks to Dr. Edward Soltesz and Dr. Anthony Zaki for sharing their clinical experiences and research with our patient community!

Keep on tickin!
Adam

Over the past 10 years, we have learned a lot about the use Enhanced Recovery After Cardiac Surgery (ERAS) guidelines. For example, we have learned about rapid recovery protocols that are designed to minimize patient pain using rigid sternal fixation and cryoanalgesia while decreasing opioid (narcotics) usage. Most recently, we learned about in-operating room ventilator tube removal.

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Hearing from heart valve patients about their success stories continues to be one of my favorite parts of running HeartValveSurgery.com.   This time, it was Deborah Ogilvie that brought an ear-to-ear smile to my face.  As you can read below, Deborah just had an aortic valve reoperation performed by Dr. Alfredo Trento at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

 
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As many of you know, I love to try and grow vegetables.  For many years, I failed miserably.  Nothing went right.  I grew the wrong varieties for our climate. I grew the wrong strains that didn’t fit in my little garden.  I was so bad that I almost gave up.

 
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