{"id":6944,"date":"2011-10-11T15:02:47","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T20:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/?p=6944"},"modified":"2025-05-29T16:45:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T21:45:55","slug":"average-yearly-mitral-valve-repair-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2011\/10\/11\/average-yearly-mitral-valve-repair-surgery\/","title":{"rendered":"True or False: Cardiac Surgeons Perform At Least 37 Mitral Valve Repair Surgeries Each Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

As heart valve surgery is a very serious and very complex operation, I encourage all patients to interview and research their potential surgeons. Even with the known risks of heart valve surgery<\/a>, you want to be 100% confident in your surgeon as you are being rolled into the operating room.<\/p>\n

One of the key criteria for surgeon selection is experience. Specific to this point, I just learned a very interesting fact about the average yearly number of mitral valve repair surgeries performed by cardiac surgeons.<\/p>\n

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Well… What do you think?<\/p>\n

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If you said “True”… That’s what I thought! I quickly did the math and, in my mind, it is completely logical that a surgeon, performing 1-2 procedures a day, would easily reach 37 mitral valve repairs during a twelve month period.<\/p>\n

However, the data provided by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) indicates a “False” response is correct. As\u00a0Dr. Michael Mack<\/a>, the president of STS, recently reported, the mean number of mitral valve repair surgeries performed annually is only… five.<\/p>\n

During this interview, Dr. Mack, who practices at The Heart Hospital in Plano, Texas, alludes to the research of Dr. Steven Bolling. In May, I was able to discuss that research with Steven Bolling, MD<\/a> at the AATS meeting. In case you missed it, here’s a great video in which Dr. Bolling, Director of the Mitral Valve Clinic at the University of Michigan, answers the question, “Is your surgeon likely to perform mitral valve repair surgery?”<\/p>\n

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