{"id":1453,"date":"2021-08-26T01:20:50","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T01:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/?page_id=1453"},"modified":"2024-01-16T16:12:19","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T16:12:19","slug":"reoperations","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/reoperations\/","title":{"rendered":"Heart Valve Re-Operations: What Should Patients Know?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Heart valve re-operation is a &#8220;hot topic&#8221; among patients at HeartValveSurgery.com.\u00a0 It can also be a confusing topic.\u00a0 Patients are struggling to understand their best option as traditional surgical approaches and catheter-based re-interventions are now available.<\/p>\n<p>To learn more, we interviewed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Nimesh-Desai-Philadelphia-Pennsylvania.php\">Dr. Nimesh Desai<\/a>.\u00a0 So you know, Dr. Desai is the Director of the Aorta Center at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/hospital\/penn-medicine\">Penn Medicine Heart and Vascular Center<\/a> in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During his\u00a0 career, Dr. Desai has performed 4,000+ cardiac procedures, of which 2,000+ operations involved some form of heart valve replacement or heart valve repair.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qsRRdEc-Mqk\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Key Learnings About Heart Valve Re-Operations<\/h2>\n<p>Here are the key learnings I jotted down during my interview with Dr. Desai:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dr. Desai knew he wanted to become a cardiac surgeon since elementary school.\u00a0 After researching the human body for a class project, he became fascinated by the idea of fixing and transplanting hearts.<\/li>\n<li>Specific to valvular therapy, Dr. Desai decided to focus on the treatment of the aortic, mitral, tricuspid and pulmonary valves given their design, their uniqueness and their complexity. &#8220;It&#8217;s a puzzle to put valves back together again when something goes wrong with them,&#8221; stated Dr. Desai.<\/li>\n<li>During his career, Dr. Desai has learned that no single therapy is necessarily &#8220;permanent&#8221;.\u00a0 For this reason, heart valve re-operation(s) can be part of the lifetime management of valvulard disorders.<\/li>\n<li>It is important to note that heart valve re-operations are &#8220;more complex&#8221; than first-time procedures. Re-operations are more complex due to (i) scar tissue and (ii) the removal of previous heart valve replacements and\/or heart valve repair devices without damaging the heart.<\/li>\n<li>According to Dr. Desai, the team at Penn Medicine has developed many practices and techniques to mitigate the risks of heart valve re-operations given the added complexity of a second (or third) re-intervention.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Desai is now using catheter-based and\/or minimally-invasive techniques to avoid full, open-heart valve re-operations. Dr. Desai states, &#8220;It\u2019s been an amazing feat of technology to be able to actually take heart valves that are the size of a golf ball and miniaturize them down onto a catheter that we actually slide inside your arteries and up into your heart. In doing so, we can extend the life of a surgical operation by basically putting new leaflets or new moving components inside an old heart valve that we\u2019ve already repaired or replaced.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The utility of non-invasive, catheter-based therapies for re-operations are not available to all patients. Patients may not be eligible for catheter-based therapies (i) if their initial valve replacement was too small or (ii) if the patient has developed an aortic aneurysm.<\/li>\n<li>For all patients needing an initial, heart valve procedure, Dr. Desai and the Penn Medicine team are strategically thinking about the possibility of a re-operation in the future. Dr. Desai states, &#8220;Every operation we do today, the first time around, we are thinking about what we may need to do in the future and how to set it up for either a transcatheter solution, another re-operation, or to try to use procedures that may not fail like a Ross Procedure.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>At Penn Medicine, about 50% of all heart valve re-operations are being performed using transcatheter, non-invasive procedures.<\/li>\n<li>Given the evolution of new techniques and medical devices, Dr. Desai believes that heart valve re-operations should be very safe at a cardiac center that specializes in heart valve therapy.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Desai&#8217;s number one piece of advice for patients is to get medical care from a very experienced team &#8211; outstanding cardiologists, anesthesiologists, imaging specialists, interventional cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, and critical care.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Thanks Dr. Desai &amp; Penn Medicine!<\/h2>\n<p>Many thanks to Dr. Desai for taking time away from his very busy practice to share these fantastic insights with our patient community. In addition, I\u2019d like to thank Penn Medicine for taking care of so many patients in our community.<\/p>\n<p>Related Articles:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Nimesh-Desai-Philadelphia-Pennsylvania.php\">See Dr. Desai&#8217;s Interactive Surgeon Profile<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/hospital\/penn-medicine\">Explore the Penn Medicine Heart Valve Microsite<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n<p>P.S. For the hearing impaired members of our community, I posted a written transcript of this video interview below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"cms.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"class_list":["post-1453","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-adams-updates"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1453"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4107,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1453\/revisions\/4107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}