{"id":566,"date":"2008-09-16T07:22:32","date_gmt":"2008-09-16T12:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2008\/09\/16\/thoracotomy-vs-sternotomy-for-mitral-valve-surgery\/"},"modified":"2018-09-02T13:56:05","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T18:56:05","slug":"thoracotomy-vs-sternotomy-for-mitral-valve-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2008\/09\/16\/thoracotomy-vs-sternotomy-for-mitral-valve-surgery\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoracotomy Vs. Sternotomy For Vicki’s Mitral Valve Surgery… Any Female Perspectives?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vicki (pictured below) recently sent me a question regarding her upcoming mitral valve surgery. While I have some ideas for Vicki, we thought it might be helpful for Vicki to gather feedback from other patients – especially females. That said… Do you have any thoughts for Vicki? Here is what she writes:<\/p>\n

Hi Adam,<\/p>\n

I’m scheduled for mitral valve surgery (hopefully repair<\/a>, not mitral valve replacement<\/a>) on September 26. I’m a very fit 54-year old woman that climbs mountains, bikes and generally expects a lot of her body!<\/p>\n

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My surgeon, Doctor Vincent Gaudiani<\/a>, has given me the choice of a thoracotomy or a midline sternotomy. Considering this choice, I am looking to find one or more women that opted for the thoracotomy, and had the procedure done one or more years ago.<\/p>\n

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Thoracotomy – Incision Diagram<\/div>\n

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The pros of the thoracotomy procedure are: 1) aesthetics and 2) no bone breakage. BUT, I’m wondering what the long-term effect of cutting through the intercostal muscles has on mobility, exercise, yoga, etc.<\/p>\n

I want to make sure that a thoracotomy is the best option for someone that is very active. It would be a bummer to pick that option, only to find out that my mobility has been lessened – most likely due to pain – over time.<\/p>\n

Thanks for your help on this! I just ordered your book! Best regards, Vicki. To provide your thoughts on thoracotomy and sternotomy, please scroll down to leave a comment for Vicki. In advance, thanks for your help!<\/p>\n

Scroll down to see 35+ patient comments.<\/p>\n

Keep on tickin!
\nAdam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patient-stories"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566","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=566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}