{"id":5026,"date":"2024-11-04T17:16:44","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T17:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/?page_id=5026"},"modified":"2024-11-06T15:38:42","modified_gmt":"2024-11-06T15:38:42","slug":"minimally-invasive-sternotomy-survival-rates","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/minimally-invasive-sternotomy-survival-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"Surgeon Q&#038;A: Survival Rates of Minimally-Invasive Versus Sternotomy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When diagnosed with the need of undergoing heart valve surgery, patients are often curious about the benefits of minimally-invasive approaches compared to traditional sternotomy. That said, patients should realize that a minimally-invasive approach is still \u201copen heart surgery\u201d. \u00a0While the incision is smaller during a minimally-invasive cardiac surgery, the heart will be stopped and the patient will go on the heart-lung machine.<\/p>\n<p>To this point, we recently received a patient question from Sabatai on this subject. Sabatai asked, \u201cWhat are the survival rates of minimally invasive versus sternotomy for heart valve therapy?\u201d To answer this questions, we met with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Douglas-Johnston-Chicago-Illinois.php\">Dr. Doug Johnston<\/a> during the Annual Meeting of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Dr. Johnston is the Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, and has performed over 3,000 heart valve operations and has extensive experience in minimally-invasive heart valve surgeries.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WbF0eyoHUYE?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Key Learnings About Minimally-Invasive Versus Sternotomy Survival Rates<\/h2>\n<p>Here are important insights shared by Dr. Johnston:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Studies show that both approaches are equivalent in terms of safety. Johnston said, \u201cSabatai, excellent question. Patients may hear, depending on who they talk to, concerns about minimally-invasive surgery and that it is less effective or less safe. The way I would answer that is we now have many studies from large centers that do both sternotomy and small incision surgery that show us that the safety is equivalent, meaning that your chance of making it through the operation free from mortality is the same.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Douglas-Johnston-Chicago-Illinois.php\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/profileImages\/301_129_151.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. Douglas Johnston\" width=\"129\" height=\"151\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Douglas-Johnston-Chicago-Illinois.php\">Dr. Douglas Johnston<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There is not much long-term data comparing survival rates for minimally-invasive to sternotomy. \u201cWe don\u2019t have as much data about long-term survival, but what we know is if you had a good early operation and got a good valve, your long-term survival is dependent more on your heart and other disease processes,\u201d said Dr. Johnston. \u201cWe expect that the long-term outcome will be the same.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Talk to surgeons who do different types of operations. Johnston told us, \u201cIt\u2019s important to talk to somebody who does minimally-invasive surgery if you want to find out about minimally- invasive surgery. I think that a patient\u2019s best source of information on these is to get a couple of opinions from people who do different types of operations so they can understand that this is an expert consensus to some extent. Still, there is very good data to support both.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5031 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/..\/Images\/minimally-invasive-vs-sternotomy-considerations.jpg\" alt=\"Minimally-Invasive Cardiac Surgery Considerations\" width=\"650\" height=\"364\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Patients should do their diligence when finding an experienced surgeon in minimally-invasive approaches. According to an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ahajournals.org\/doi\/full\/10.1161\/CIRCULATIONAHA.112.001402\">article<\/a> in <em>Circulation, <\/em>minimally-invasive techniques require a steep learning curve, and surgeons need a minimum of 75-125 successful operations with good monitoring and mentoring to reach the necessary competencies for overall safety, quality and survival outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1>Thanks Dr. Johnston and Northwestern Medicine!<\/h1>\n<p>On behalf of Sabatai and our entire patient community, thank you to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Douglas-Johnston-Chicago-Illinois.php\">Dr. Doug Johnston<\/a> for sharing his experience and knowledge about minimally-invasive versus sternotomy survival rates. We also want to thank Northwestern Medicine for taking great care of our heart valve patients!<\/p>\n<p>Related Links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2015\/08\/05\/less-invasive-aortic-valve-surgery\/\">Research Update: Less Invasive Aortic Valve Surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/dr-douglas-johnston.php\">Surgeon Spotlight: Dr. Doug Johnston<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/patient-prosthesis-mismatch\/\">Patient Prosthesis Mismatch: What Should Patients Know?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on tickin,<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>P.S. For the deaf and hard-of-hearing members of our community, a written transcript of this interview with Dr. Johnston is provided below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"cms.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"class_list":["post-5026","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-recovery"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5026","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5026"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5042,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5026\/revisions\/5042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}