{"id":5669,"date":"2025-05-12T17:39:20","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T17:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/?page_id=5669"},"modified":"2026-02-10T19:58:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T19:58:32","slug":"north-american-ross-consortium","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/north-american-ross-consortium\/","title":{"rendered":"North American Ross Consortium: What Should Patients Know?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/ross-procedure-aortic-disease\">Ross Procedure<\/a> is arguably the most complex heart valve operation that cardiac surgeons perform on patients with severe aortic valve disease. The procedure takes an average of six to eight hours and replaces the diseased aortic valve with the patient\u2019s own pulmonary valve. A donor valve is then implanted in place of the pulmonary valve.<\/p>\n<p>Utilization of the Ross Procedure has increased in recent years, particularly in high-volume centers with master surgeons with extensive experience performing several Ross operations every year. Collaboration between surgeons from various centers has proven to be a key factor in the growing success and continued positive outcomes of many Ross Procedure programs.\u00a0 This collaboration led to the formation of the North American Ross Consortium (NARC).<\/p>\n<p>HeartValveSurgery.com\u2019s founder, Adam Pick, met with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-William-Brinkman-Plano-Texas.php\">Dr. Bill Brinkman<\/a> to learn about NARC. Dr. Brinkman is a leading Ross Procedure surgeon at Baylor, Scott &amp; White The Heart Hospital Plano in Plano, Texas. Dr. Brinkman has performed over 2,500 heart valve surgeries throughout his extraordinary career.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CDwpJDlv1_I?rel=0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><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><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>Facts About the North American Ross Consortium<\/h2>\n<p>Here are the key insights shared by Dr. Brinkman:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What are you, your cardiac center, and other teams doing to manage the continued growth of the Ross Procedure, given that it is so unique and complex? \u201cThat\u2019s a great question,\u201d said Dr. Brinkman. \u201cWe have a group, a consortium, the North American Ross Consortium (NARC), we\u2019ve developed with our team of Baylor, Scott, &amp; White in Plano, the University of Washington in Seattle, Northwestern University in Chicago, and the University of Pennsylvania, all very experienced Ross Centers. We had a meeting today. We\u2019re compiling our data, looking at outcomes, and getting very granular on the technical aspects of the procedure to try and standardize it. The Ross Procedure requires a master surgeon. There is a lot of mastery to it.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5670 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/..\/Images\/NARC-initiatives.jpg\" alt=\"North American Ross Consortium Initiatives\" width=\"650\" height=\"360\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>NARC is developing guidelines for autograft support during the Ross Procedure. \u201cWe also develop some guidelines for recommended techniques with certain anatomic situations,\u201d explained Dr. Brinkman. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what NARC is looking at because there are many ways to support the autograft, and that\u2019s a critical aspect of making sure it\u2019s stable and has good long-term outcomes with the Ross Procedure. Some surgeons support it with a Dacron graft, and others use native support. There are also surgeons who put it in a subcoronary position, and there are differing opinions on how they replace the right ventricular outflow tract, the pulmonary artery.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5671 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/..\/Images\/reinforced-autograft.jpg\" alt=\"Reinforced Autograft from Ross Procedure\" width=\"650\" height=\"362\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How is NARC working to better understand the different techniques specific to the Ross Procedure? \u201cAll of the techniques can work,\u201d stated Dr. Brinkman. \u201cBut, I think there is debate about which technique might be the best with each anatomic situation, and that\u2019s what the NARC is trying to help surgeons get to the bottom of. We\u2019re moving a little more from art to more of engineering. It will lead to better long-term outcomes with refinement of the technique.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Are Baylor, Scott &amp; White, the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, and UW Medicine receiving funding to get the NARC going? \u201cThe individual sites have some internal funding, but the primary resource of our funding is a company called Artivion, and they\u2019ve generously donated a significant portion of money,\u201d said Dr. Brinkman. \u201cThey also provide the homografts when we reconstruct the RVOT or where the pulmonary valve was. So, it\u2019s also in their best interest to support the Ross operations and ensure it grows well, because they want it to be a sustainable, good procedure for the future.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5672 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/..\/Images\/pulmonary-homograft.jpg\" alt=\"Pulmonary Homograft from Artivion\" width=\"650\" height=\"363\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Adam Pick added his thoughts on the NARC. \u201cWhat I love about what you\u2019re talking about is that it\u2019s a community effort,\u201d said Adam. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about the surgeon. It\u2019s the team. It\u2019s the cardiac center. It\u2019s Artivion. It\u2019s educating people about all this great work that you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Thanks Dr. Brinkman and Baylor, Scott &amp; White!<\/h2>\n<p>On behalf of all the patients in our community, thank you, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-William-Brinkman-Plano-Texas.php\">Dr. Bill Brinkman<\/a>, for everything you and your team are doing at Baylor, Scott &amp; White The Heart Hospital- Plano in Plano, Texas.<\/p>\n<p>Related links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/ross-procedure-aortic-disease\">Explore the Ross Procedure Patient Education Center<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/ross-procedure-reoperations-research\/\">Cardiac Research: Durability and Reoperation of the Ross Procedure<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on tickin,<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n<p>P.S. For the deaf and hard-of-hearing members of our patient community, we have provided a written transcript of our interview with Dr. Brinkman 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":[16],"class_list":["post-5669","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-ross-procedure"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5669","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=5669"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6496,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5669\/revisions\/6496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}