{"id":30180,"date":"2019-07-12T12:54:33","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T17:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/?p=30180"},"modified":"2025-05-12T09:07:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T14:07:20","slug":"aortic-aneurysm-dr-chris-malaisrie-patient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2019\/07\/12\/aortic-aneurysm-dr-chris-malaisrie-patient\/","title":{"rendered":"No More &#8220;Walking Time Bomb&#8221; for Tom After Valve-Sparing Aortic Root Replacement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Being diagnosed with severe heart disease can be incredibly dislocating for patients, their family and friends.\u00a0 \u00a0That dislocation is often amplified when the diagnosis is unexpected and the patient is asymptomatic.<\/p>\n<p>Tom Tansor &#8211; a father, husband and little league coach from Chicago &#8211; describes the unexpected and anxious experience of being diagnosed with a severe aortic aneurysm as feeling like a &#8220;walking time bomb&#8221;.\u00a0 \u00a0Tom knew the situation was bad.\u00a0 Tom knew the aneurysm needed to be replaced.\u00a0 But, after meeting with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-S.+Chris-Malaisrie-Chicago-Illinois.php\">Dr. Chris Malaisrie<\/a>, Tom was hopeful he could keep his own aortic valve in a complex procedure known as a &#8220;valve-sparing aortic root replacement&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>This is Tom&#8217;s story&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/I9dk4G3Oxx0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>After interviewing Tom for this video in Chicago, I can tell you that Tom has made a full and complete recovery.\u00a0 \u00a0You wouldn&#8217;t even know that Tom had open heart surgery to fix his aortic aneurysm but keep his aortic valve.\u00a0 Tom is doing everything he did before the surgery and he&#8217;s feeling great.\u00a0\u00a0Woo-Whoo!!!<\/p>\n<p>There are so many great points in this video, I want to jot them down quickly:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Being diagnosed with a severe aortic aneurysm is not always an emergent situation requiring immediate cardiac surgery.\u00a0 While I have heard several stories about patients needing emergency surgery, the patient is not always at immediate risk of a dissection or rupture.\u00a0 That said, I strongly encourage all patients to closely watch and monitor any aneurysm or valve disease with the support of an expert medical team.<\/li>\n<li>Similar to heart valve disease, patients with aortic aneurysms are often asymptomatic (without symptoms).<\/li>\n<li>The normal diameter of an aortic aneurysm is 2 to 3 centimeters. Severe aortic aneurysms can swell to 5 to 6 centimeters which can lead to a rupture or dissection.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Valve sparing aortic root replacement&#8221; is a complex procedure that enables the patient to keep his or her own aortic valve while removing a bulging aneurysm.\u00a0 The valve is &#8220;spared&#8221; while the aneurysm is replaced with a polyester graft, also known as a Dacron graft.<\/li>\n<li>Specialists, including Dr. Chris Malaisrie, have seen excellent surgical outcomes for patients undergoing a valve-sparing aortic root replacement procedure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Many thanks to Tom Tansor for sharing his story with our community.\u00a0 A special thanks goes out to Dr. Chris Malaisrie and the entire Northwestern Medicine team for taking such great care of Tom and his family.\u00a0 Great job!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-S.+Chris-Malaisrie-Chicago-Illinois.php\">See 50+ Patient Reviews for Dr. Chris Malaisrie<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/hospital\/northwestern-memorial-valve-program\">Learn about Northwestern Medicine&#8217;s Aneurysm &amp; Heart Valve Program<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on tickin&#8217; Tom!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n<p>P.S. I have provided a written transcript of this video below for the hearing impaired members of our community.<\/p>\n<p>Tom Tansor: My name\u2019s Tom. I\u2019m from Chicago. I\u2019m a husband and father of three. I love to spend time with my kids. I coach little league baseball, softball, and basketball.\u00a0 I enjoy running and exercising &#8212; being active and enjoying Chicago. I received a phone call from my primary care physician here at Northwestern who told me that I had a 5.5 centimeter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/aortic-aneurysm.php\">aortic aneurysm<\/a>.\u00a0 I felt like a walking time bomb. The anxiety that I had in the unknown of what this meant.\u00a0 I just knew it was bad.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Chris Malaisrie:\u00a0 An aortic aneurysm is a local ballooning of the very large blood vessel that takes blood from the heart and distributes it to the rest of the body. The aorta should have a diameter of about 2 to 3 centimeters. In patients with aortic aneurysms, they can have aortas the size of 5 to 6 centimeters, which puts the patient at risk for life-threatening rupture or dissection. Many patients with aortic aneurysms do not have any symptoms. If the patient does have symptoms, it becomes very important to seek medical attention very, very quickly.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/Malaisrie-Clinic.jpg\" width=\"450\" height=\"322\" \/>Dr. Chris Malaisrie<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Tom Tansor: When I met with Dr. Malaisrie, he and his nurse practitioners instantly made me feel better. It was urgent but it wasn\u2019t an emergency where I was going to have to have the surgery that day.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Chris Malaisrie: Mr. Tansor was diagnosed with an aortic root aneurysm. I was very averse to replacing his aortic valve. My preference is to spare and repair the aortic valve. Because of that, I offered him a valve-sparing aortic root replacement. These are procedures that I\u2019ve done for patients who have an aneurysm that is located around the aortic root. The reason this is more complex is because the aortic root is intimately involved with the aortic valve.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/david-procedure-surgery-image.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"332\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The valve-sparing aortic root replacement offers the opportunity to repair the aortic valve rather than to replace the aortic valve. The primary problem is an aortic root aneurysm, but the valve, which is right next to it, can become secondarily involved.\u00a0 If the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/aortic-valve-regurgitation-symptoms.php\">aortic valve becomes too leaky<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/aortic-valve-repair-surgery.php\">aortic valve is repaired<\/a>, spared while replacing the aneurysm.\u00a0 I\u2019ve dedicated my career at Northwestern perfecting this procedure.\u00a0 I can say after ten years of following my patients very closely.\u00a0 I\u2019m thrilled with the outcomes we\u2019ve seen here.<\/p>\n<p>Tom Tansor: Dr. Malaisrie and his team had a huge impact on my life. They were terrific to be with. They were understanding, responsive; made it almost very routine that they see this all the time. I think that we\u2019re really lucky and fortunate to have Northwestern and a team like his here so close in Chicago.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Chris Malaisrie: Mr. Tansor is a success story after valve-sparing aortic root replacement. Even after such a complex operation, he only had four days in the hospital afterwards. I know Mr. Tansor is a runner and I fully expect him to be back running in the near future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aneurysms"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30180","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=30180"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41107,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30180\/revisions\/41107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}