{"id":9632,"date":"2012-10-19T09:34:38","date_gmt":"2012-10-19T14:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/?p=9632"},"modified":"2025-06-14T10:14:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T15:14:12","slug":"bicuspid-aortic-valve-surgery-timing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2012\/10\/19\/bicuspid-aortic-valve-surgery-timing\/","title":{"rendered":"Heart Valve Summit Video #1: &#8220;When Can I Expect To Have Bicuspid Aortic Valve Surgery?&#8221; Asks Kim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prior to the Heart Valve Summit, I received over 70 patient questions for the doctors at the conference. In her question, Kim asked, &#8220;Hi Adam, I have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/bicuspid-aortic-valve-symptoms.php\">a bicuspid aortic valve<\/a> with a valve size of .6 and a gradient of 80. When can I expect to have surgery?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To answer Kim&#8217;s question, I was very fortunate to meet and interview\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nm.org\/doctors\/1447227269\/robert-o-bonow-md\">Dr. Robert Bonow<\/a>, who is a Past President of The American Heart Association and current Professor of Cardiology at Northwestern University. I have posted a written transcript of this video (below) for the patients and caregivers who are hearing impaired.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5JIKIuuOX9s\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Thanks to Kim for her question <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">and<\/span> a special thanks to Dr. Bonow for taking the time to share his research and clinical experience with our community.<\/p>\n<p>Related Links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/bicuspid-aortic-valve-symptoms.php\">Bicuspid Aortic Valve Disease: Symptoms, Causes and Treatment<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/bicuspid-savr-tavr\/\">Surgeon Q&amp;A: SAVR or TAVR for Bicuspid Aortic Valve Disease<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/4eon7OS\">Free Patient eBook: Advances in Bicuspid Aortic Valve Therapy<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n<p>P.S. Here is the written transcript of the video interview.<\/p>\n<p>Adam: Hi everybody! It\u2019s Adam with HeartValveSurgery.com. Today, we are at the Heart Valve Summit in Chicago, Illinois. I am thrilled to be joined by Dr. Bob Bonow who is a Professor of Cardiology at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/hospital\/northwestern-memorial-valve-program\">Northwestern Memorial Hospital<\/a> and a Past President of the American Heart Association. Bob, nice to have you here.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Bonow: Thanks Adam. Happy to be here.<\/p>\n<p>Adam: As you may know, we\u2019re answering questions that were posted at HeartValveSurgery.com. Dr. Bonow we got a question from Kim. Kim writes, \u201cI have a bicuspid aortic valve with a valve size of 0.6 and a gradient of 80. When can I expect to have valve surgery?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Bonow: Great question Kim.\u00a0 The first thing that we always tell our patients is that we have no crystal ball. We don\u2019t know all the ins-and-outs but we do know a lot about this condition. This is a very common condition and occurs in 1\u00bd to 2% of the population. So, you have a very common condition. What I don\u2019t know about you Kim &#8212; is your age, that is a factor, and, whether you want to become pregnant. Are you still in that time of your life where that is a consideration? That would be of some bearing. But, getting back to your question, you have a very tight valve &#8212; assuming this has been assessed very carefully and adequately and correctly. If that\u2019s the case, you fit into a group of patients that has a very high likelihood of needing surgery over the next couple of years. You are likely to develop symptoms which could be shortness of breath, chest discomfort or light headedness. Or, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/aortic-stenosis-valve-heart-narrowing.php\">the valve might get even tighter (aortic stenosis)<\/a> with time such that your physicians would become even more concerned. Now, not knowing the discussions you\u2019ve had with your doctors, I would say that it\u2019s very important to have these discussion with your doctors. And, if you are not seeing a specialist in this condition \u2013 a cardiologist who sees lots of patients with aortic stenosis &#8212; then you should probably do that to really get more input as to what your next step might be, because you do have a high likelihood of requiring surgery and you want to be in the hands of people who know exactly the right things to do. And, if you do need surgery, the right surgeons to send you to so that you could have the surgery performed in a center where there\u2019s very low risk and a very good outcome. So, in a center that performs lots of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/aortic-valve-replacement-surgery.php\">aortic valve replacement surgery<\/a>, your risk should be quite low, with a very good long-term outcome. The important point is to have that discussion with your physicians to make sure that you are in the right safety net to have all the right things done. The other thing I should point out is that should you develop any symptoms, you don\u2019t want to ignore them &#8212; and with this degree of aortic stenosis the chances are that you might develop symptoms over the course of the next several years.. It\u2019s quite safe to wait until you have symptoms. But, as soon as you do have symptoms, it\u2019s no longer so safe and that\u2019s you when you clearly need to have the surgery done. In some cases, because of the high likelihood that this may happen in the short term, \u00a0many times we recommend early surgery when the valve is this tight, because it is so predictable that it is going to happen at some point in the near future. Be certain that the measurements are accurate. That may require some additional tests to validate the current information you have and to confirm that the valve is indeed as tight as it appears to be. Then, have some very careful discussions with your physicians about the next steps.<\/p>\n<p>Adam: Well, Kim, I hope that was helpful for you and also for the other patients who are watching this video. And, to you Dr. Bonow, I just want to thank you for all that you have done during your incredible career. It really seems like you have pursued healthy hearts your whole life. On behalf of the patients and the caregivers in our community, I just want to thank you for all that you\u2019re doing. Thanks for stopping by and sharing this information with us.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Bonow:\u00a0 Thanks Adam. Keep up the good work and sending all the important messages out to the many patients who have valve problems.<\/p>\n<p>Adam: Thanks so much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bicuspid-aortic-valve"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9632","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=9632"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42185,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9632\/revisions\/42185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}