Adam's Heart Valve Surgery Blog – Page 23

Thanks to you… I’m happy to share that the HeartValveSurgery.com Facebook Page just reached 260,000 members!

In the last 72 hours alone, we welcomed over 7,200 new members to our community.

If you have yet to visit our Facebook page, you can check it out here. As you will see, the HVS Facebook page is great way to connect with patients and learn about valvular disorders and therapies. Plus, we love celebrating inspirational patient stories.

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I can not keep up with all the new advances in heart valve therapy.  In the last 24 hours, I learned about FDA approvals for the Avalus heart valve by Medtronic and the Inspiris Resilia by Edwards Lifesciences.  I also came across a fascinating story about 3D printing and heart valve replacements.

According to a new study published in JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging, researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and Piedmont Heart Institute, may have found new ways to enhance transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) performance using 3D printing technologies.

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On Friday… I lost a hero, a great friend and my dad at the same time.

After a long and ruthless battle against Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD), my dad, Jerry Pick, re-discovered comfort and peace.  At 77 years young, angels swooped down upon his home to disconnect and lift his spirit from a body that had failed him.

Jerry Pick (1940-2017)

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This is an amazing woman. At 92, Kato Pomer was on the brink of death due to severe mitral regurgitation. Then… Thanks to the love and tenacity of Karen, her daughter, Kato enrolled in a clinical trial for the MitraClip at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.

Now, 8 years later, Kato just turned 100 years young! She was recently featured on ABC news in Los Angeles.

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There is an outright explosion of medical advances specific to heart valve devices. In this edition of “Medical Wow!”, I’d like to introduce you to Project ImaValve.

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In case you missed it…. There is some BIG NEWS to report. Last week, the SAPIEN 3 received FDA approval for mitral and aortic “Valve-In-Valve” replacement for high-risk patients. As you might remember, we’ve been talking about the wonderful possibilities of Valve-in-Valve techniques for years with doctors, like Dr. Eric Roselli, and patients, like Jesse McBride.

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Something special recently happened. More than 60 patients and their care partners traveled to Edwards Lifesciences, a leading heart valve manufacturer in Irvine, California, to meet each other, to share their stories and to inspire action within our community – the heart valve patient community.

This day is appropriately called… Patient Day!!!!!

Luckily, Edwards asked us to attend Patient Day 2017 and film the wonderful moments of this unique event that included meet-and-greets with the heart valve assembly teams, panel and group discussions, a campus and manufacturing tour and more. My favorite part of the day was watching patients meet the Edwards employees who made their valves by hand.

Ready to see what happened at Patient Day? Watch the video below…

 
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I recently received a great question from Sandy about mitral regurgitation and her mitral chords, also known as mitral chordae.

In her email, Sandy writes, “Hi Adam, I was recently diagnosed with mitral regurg after my doctor heard a murmur. I understand that I have an issue with my mitral chords. But, I’m not really sure what that means. I didn’t see much on your site about this. Any thoughts for me?”

To help Sandy (and all of us) learn more about mitral valve chords, I reached out to Dr. Robert Saeid Farivar, a leading heart valve surgeon.

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With all the new heart valve technologies being developed, I’m getting great questions about clinical trials. That said, I just came across a new educational video released by the Alliance for Aging Research that reveals many interesting facts about clinical trials — from the patient perspective.

If you – or someone you love – are considering a clinical trial, I thought you might like to see this video.

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I am very excited to announce that Weill Cornell Medicine (Weill Cornell) just launched a new Heart Valve Microsite at HeartValveSurgery.com!

Weill Cornell, which is located in New York, has taken care of many patients in our community including Barbara Vitale, John Goethe, Michael Kramer, George Majors, Gail Railer and yes… The one-and-only Mitch Friedman. As you may know, there is a great team of cardiac specialists at Weill Cornell including Dr. Leonard Girard, Dr. Arash Salemi and Dr. T. Sloane Guy. See the new Weill Cornell Microsite.

On behalf of our community, many thanks to the entire Weill Cornell medical team, Roselena Martinez and Dinna Greer for joining forces with HeartValveSurgery.com as we continue to educate and empower patients with heart valve disease!!!

• Experience the new Weill Cornell Heart Valve Microsite

Keep on tickin!
Adam

Hey Everybody!

Over the past 6 months, HeartValveSurgery.com has experienced a significant increase in website traffic. So… To accommodate all the new members of our community, I thought it was a great time to upgrade our servers.

If you’re curious… We’re shifting to a solid state drive (SSD) server system that leverages the fastest technology for serving up great educational content. Interestingly SSDs have no mechanical parts. If you like you can learn about them here.

In addition to the SSDs, we will also use a content delivery network (CDN) which has servers in 20+ countries around the world.

Thanks for your patience as we roll-out the new server system! I’m very hopeful this new system will perform much better than our older server system.

Keep on tickin!
Adam

As a dad… As a heart valve patient… I need to say “Thank You!” to Jimmy Kimmel for sharing this emotional and inspirational story about Billy, his newborn son.

Many, many, many, many thanks to Dr. Vaughn Starnes (who performed my surgery) and Dr. Evan Zahn for taking such great care of the Kimmels!

Keep on tickin’ Billy!
Adam

We’ve talked about how the tricuspid valve is often referred to as the “forgotten valve” within cardiac care. At the same time, we’ve also learned that the treatment of tricuspid valve regurgitation is on the rise — either as a stand-alone therapy or combined with a mitral valve procedure.

That said, I was really interested to learn about a new transcatheter technology that is being used in the SCOUT feasibility study to treat tricuspid regurgitation. To learn more, I sat down with Dr. Charles Davidson who is the Clinical Chief of Cardiology at Northwestern Medicine. Here are the highlights from my interview with Dr. Davidson about this new technology.

Pretty neat, right? I guess this is one more piece of evidence that the use of transcatheter technologies is going to continue across the aortic, mitral, pulmonary and tricuspid valves. The possibilities are very, very, very exciting.

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This is completely unexpected and amazing! Our website was just mentioned in an interview with Steve Nicklin, a heart valve patient from Washington DC, who had successful surgery with Dr. Marc Gerdisch in Indiana. (So you know, Dr. Gerdisch has treated many patients from our community.)

You might recall that we posted a picture of Steve at our Facebook page immediately following his surgery. To see what happened next, watch Steve’s video.

On behalf of our community, I can’t thank Steve enough for sharing his story, his emotions and his success story in this interview. While it’s neat that Steve mentioned us in the video, I’m much more happy knowing that Steve is doing great after heart surgery. Also… Many, many, many thanks to Dr. Gerdisch, Nicole, Tara and Vanessa for taking such great care of Steve.

• See Dr. Gerdisch’s Interactive Surgeon Profile (with 86 patient testimonials!) 

Keep on tickin’ Steve!
Adam

As up to 35% of patients with heart valve disease also have atrial fibrillation (an irregular heartbeat), I needed to make sure you knew about this.

It was recently announced that AFib ablation, a procedure for treating AFib during valve surgery, was just promoted to a Class 1 Recommendation by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons in their newly published 2017 guidelines. This is really big news for patients because we have learned that many times AFib is not always properly treated during heart valve procedures.

To learn more about this development, I reached out to Dr. Gorav Ailawadi. So you know, Dr. Ailawadi is a heart valve and AFib specialist at Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  I’ve been fortunate to see Dr. Ailawadi operate before. He’s not only a great guy but many patients from this community have had excellent results with Dr. Ailawadi. 🙂

Dr. Gorav Ailawadi – Heart Surgeon

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Heart valve surgery is in a renaissance.  During the last 10 years, we’ve seen an emergence of new techniques, new surgical valves, new transcatheter devices and new tissue technologies. To evaluate the safety and the effectiveness of each valvular advance, clinical trials are going on — right now — all over the world. While participating in a research study is not for everyone… Many patients are seeing positive benefits for themselves and for the next generation of patients.

A great example of this is Mr. Orest Kozinczuk from Wheaton, Illinois. Orest suffered from severe mitral regurgitation. He was tired and short-of-breath. Reflecting on his quality-of-life with mitral regurgitation, Orest told me, “My life was going down the drain.”  As Orest was at high-risk for a traditional open heart procedure, Orest didn’t have many options. Then, Orest heard about a feasibility study for a new transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR). This is Orest’s story.

I am so happy for Orest who is such an exceptional person. It was great spending time with him — learning about his time in the Ukraine, his career as an electrical engineer, and his inventions. Interestingly, Orest reminded me A LOT of my Grandpa Zim. Many thanks to Orest for taking the time to share his story with our community!!!

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Did you know that only 60% of people have heard of heart valve disease?

At the same time…  Over 12% of the population, aged 75 years or older, have heart valve diseases including aortic stenosis and mitral regurgitation. YIKES!!!

It is for this and SOOOOOOOOOO many other reasons that I am excited to share that today, February 22, 2017, is the first-ever National Heart Valve Awareness Day!!! Watch this video to learn more!!!

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At the age of 57, Paul Powers had actively pursued a healthy mitral valve for the past 10 years. During that time, Paul had BOTH mitral valve repair and mitral valve replacement procedures. Unfortunately, Paul recently began to feel short of breath and  completely fatigued as his bio-prosthetic valve began to fail.

As Paul did not want to go through another open heart procedure — given the trauma and surgical risk —  Paul looked for an alternative approach to fixing his valve. That is when Paul learned that a transcatheter mitral “Valve-In-Valve” replacement might do the trick. This is Paul’s story…

I have to admit… I had no idea that a transcatheter mitral “Valve-In-Valve” was even possible — until I met Paul. That said, thanks so much to Paul for sharing his story with me and our community. Also, I would like to extend a special thanks to Dr. Chris Malaisrie and the Northwestern team for taking such great care of Paul!

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It is one of the best and most common questions I receive from patients. That fantastic question is, “When can I return to normal activity after heart surgery?”

To answer this important question, I was VERY LUCKY to interview Dr. David Adams at the recent Heart Valve Summit. So you know, Dr. Adams is the Cardiac Surgeon-in-Chief at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and he is the Co-Founder of the Heart Valve Summit. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to see Dr. Adams operate here in the United States and on a medical mission in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Adams has been one of our greatest supporters AND he has successfully treated over 100 patients from our community including Brian Walsh, Sophie Marsh, and Boris Keyser. 🙂

Here are the highlights from my interview with Dr. Adams:

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Yay!!! 2016 was another AMAZING year for our community!!!

The past 12 months was full of patient education and patient empowerment. So, as we enter 2017… Let’s look back at the stories that inspired and connected us.

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