{"id":2750,"date":"2010-09-11T12:03:06","date_gmt":"2010-09-11T17:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/?p=2750"},"modified":"2018-08-31T08:23:26","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T13:23:26","slug":"measured-fit-heart-valve-replacement-devices-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2010\/09\/11\/measured-fit-heart-valve-replacement-devices-2\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;How Will My Heart Valve Replacement Be Measured?&#8221; Asks Kate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just received a great question from Kate about heart valve replacement surgery.<\/p>\n<p>Kate writes, &#8220;Hi Adam, I&#8217;m going in for surgery next week and I have a quick, follow-up question about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2010\/09\/03\/how-big-is-a-mechanical-heart-valve-asks-jenny\/\">size of a heart valve replacement<\/a>. It might sound silly, but&#8230; During the operation, how will the surgeon measure my valve? Do they have some kind of sterile tape measure? Thanks, Kate&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While we might think that a &#8220;surgical tape measure&#8221; would determine the diameter of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2008\/08\/29\/mechanical-or-bioprosthetic-heart-valve-replacements\/\">mechanical or bioprosthetic replacement valve<\/a>, the reality is a bit different.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/Images\/heart-valve-sizer-jude.jpg\" width=\"178\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>A special tool, known as a <em>heart valve sizer<\/em>, is used to determine the size (diameter, surface area) of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-valve-replacement.php\">the heart valve replacement<\/a>. This unique device has multiple attachments that are lowered into the heart until a match is found.<\/p>\n<p>Then, the new valve is stitched into the heart using sutures &#8212; as shown below.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"Valve Replacement Being Sutured Into Heart - Diagram\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/mitral-valve-stitches.jpg\" width=\"199\" height=\"214\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Considering our bodies, hearts and heart valves are all different sizes, the heart valve sizer usually comes in a kit. Below, you will find a heart valve sizer kit offered by Medtronic, one of the leading heart valve manufacturers.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"Valve Replacement Sizer Kits\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/mechanical-valve-sizer-kit.jpg\" width=\"360\" height=\"270\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>I hope that helps Kate (and perhaps you) learn how heart valve replacements are measured and implanted during surgery.<\/p>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heart-valve-replacement"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}