{"id":190,"date":"2007-09-18T22:00:17","date_gmt":"2007-09-19T03:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2007\/09\/18\/heart-valve-operation-surgery-infection-alcoholic-risk\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T16:45:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T21:45:20","slug":"heart-valve-operation-surgery-infection-alcoholic-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2007\/09\/18\/heart-valve-operation-surgery-infection-alcoholic-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Infections Common During or After Heart Valve Surgery?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier today, I received an email with a pretty interesting question that reads, “Do you have any statistics about heart valve operations and whether or not surgery infection is common?”<\/p>\n

As always, I love questions that I have never heard before. This question about heart valve operations and surgery infection was definitely a new one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Infections<\/div>\n

 
\n
\n 
\nThat said, I am thinking back to all of the heart valve surgery patients\u00a0that I interviewed during my research for my book<\/a>. In all those discussions, there were one or two patients that experienced a post-surgery infection. Specifically, Mr. Giacoma experienced a surgery infection from his median sternotomy (chest-cracking) following his open heart valve replacement surgery. You can learn more about infections relating to the broken sternum by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other than that, my memory is drawing a blank. That said, my gut tells me that the incidence of surgery infection following a heart valve operation is relatively small.<\/p>\n

However, after doing some research, I learned that my gut was very wrong.<\/p>\n

According to a recent study<\/a> from the University of Michigan Health, one in five older adults gets an infection up to six months after heart surgery \u2014 with women far more likely to develop one, according to studies led by Michigan Medicine.<\/span><\/p>\n