{"id":6248,"date":"2025-11-11T00:05:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T00:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/?page_id=6248"},"modified":"2025-12-10T17:39:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T17:39:19","slug":"lifetime-management-heart-disease","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/lifetime-management-heart-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardiac Research: The Lifetime Management of Heart Valve Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the last 20 years, significant advancements in the diagnosis and treatment of heart valve disease have given many patients their lives back. That said, before patients can take advantage of the best treatments available, they must recognize the symptoms of heart valve disease, receive a diagnosis from their physician, and then be referred to a team of cardiac experts that can create a game plan to repair or replace the diseased valve. When patients follow the correct path to diagnosis and treatment early, their chances of achieving successful outcomes are significantly increased.<\/p>\n<p>To this point, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.josephzacharias.com\/\">Dr. Joseph Zacharias<\/a> recently co-authored a new research paper titled, \u201cLifetime Management of Heart Valve Disease &#8211; Treat It Early and Treat It Right the First Time,\u201d. The paper was featured in The Lancet.\u00a0 To learn more, Adam Pick, the founder of HeartValveSurgery.com, recently met with Dr. Zacharias, a leading endoscopic cardiac surgeon in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HB4eIEpu5N4?rel=0&#038;si=JASDnxPDFz-RfA1U\" 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><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Insights About the Lifetime Management of Heart Valve Disease<\/h2>\n<p>Here are the key insights shared by Dr. Zacharias:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Heart valve disease often goes undiagnosed early on. \u201cI\u2019m going to talk about the publication in The Lancet called \u2018Lifetime Management of Heart Valve Disease-Treat It Early and Treat It Right the First Time,\u201d said Dr. Zacharias. \u201cThe reason we picked this title is that there is a lot of heart valve disease out there that is not diagnosed. Many patients put a lot of their symptoms of heart valve disease down to just aging, and as part of aging, they presume they are just getting more tired and a little more short of breath.\u201d Dr. Zacharias explained that they\u2019ve found many patients don\u2019t visit their doctors, and even when they do, their symptoms are not thoroughly investigated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6252 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/..\/Images\/lifetime-management-of-heart-valve-disease.jpg\" alt=\"Lifetime Management of Heart Valve Disease\" width=\"650\" height=\"364\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Educating patients about heart valve disease and promoting early intervention is crucial for achieving positive outcomes. \u201cOne of the things we are starting to find is that when a heart valve isn\u2019t treated, the prognosis or lifespan is nearly as bad as some cancers,\u201d said Dr. Zacharias. He explained that they are trying to educate patients by first raising awareness of heart valve disease and second, to have it diagnosed and treated. \u201cOver the last 40 to 50 years, the treatment of heart valve disease has been revolutionized by multiple new and exciting technologies, from transcatheter to endoscopic to robotic. Patients are often frightened about having heart valve surgery because they think it\u2019s through the breastbone, and recovery takes three to six months. However, a lot of these new techniques can have patients home in a few days and back to work in three to four weeks or sometimes even earlier.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Early intervention and treatment can cure heart valve disease. Dr. Zacharias said, \u201cWe were very fortunate to have a coauthor named Dr. Maurice Enrique Serrano, who was head of cardiology at the Mayo Clinic. One of the things that surprised me was that a significant portion of his work has shown that when patients receive early intervention with the right treatment, heart valve disease can be curative. Your lifespan is just as good as the next person&#8217;s. But if you get the patient late and the effects of heart valve disease have affected the heart muscle, then whatever you do, the results are not as good. Sometimes, when they come in really late, their survival is just as bad as cancer.\u201d Dr. Zacharias explained that, given the significant interest in cancer care and treatment, they sought to draw parallels with heart valve disease by highlighting that patients require more comprehensive care networks rather than just isolated points of contact. \u201cWe thought the networks would be much wider than just one hospital or one particular health system where people could be sent for the right treatment, even if it meant going somewhere else. In the United States, it may require traveling to a specialist center.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Physicians at the specialist center should work as a team. \u201cSo, with mitral valve disease, if the valve is regurgitant or leaky, an early intervention is generally curative at any age. But if it\u2019s not, then there are transcatheter options that will also give you a very good result. We are trying to make the point that the care is complementary, and everybody must work as a team.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is it true that even if patients are asymptomatic, the recommendation is that earlier intervention is better? \u201cThat is absolutely true,\u201d said Dr. Zacharias. \u201cBut there is a caveat to that. The caveat is that you should go to a center of either excellence or a center whose published results are excellent. We believe that the results for asymptomatic patients should be near zero percent mortality and a near 100 percent repair rate. Many surgeons and hospitals achieve that, but cardiologists and networks should be able to identify these centers. Our recommendation would be to travel to a center or a surgeon who has a reputation for providing good results. That is the overall message of our paper.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Since you specialize in minimally invasive interventions, would you perform a procedure like mitral valve repair using minimally invasive techniques? \u201cI have a slight problem with the term minimally invasive because it\u2019s a very broad term that covers a lot of conditions and treatments, including transcatheter and half sternotomy or smaller skin incisions. My preferred term is endoscopic. The advantages of endoscopes are that they give both light and magnification. It also helps you learn because you can record your operation. You can re-look at it. So, if you feel you haven\u2019t done a good enough job, you can review it, talk to somebody else, and they can review it, and you can get better.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The goal is to increase the usage of endoscopic techniques. \u201cThis meeting is all about endoscopic techniques for cardiac surgery,\u201d said Dr. Zacharias. \u201cSome of them are robotic and some are non-robotic. In Europe, we have been very fortunate to have access to 3D endoscopes for about eight years. In places like Germany or Italy, 60 to 70 percent of mitral valves are repaired using the endoscopic or minimally invasive approach. In the US, it\u2019s about 20 percent. In the UK, at least 15 percent. There is a lot of work to be done, and we hope initiatives like the Endoscopic Cardiac Surgery Club and annual meetings will help both inspire the next generation of surgeons and inform patients and patient groups about its availability. Hopefully, more patients will benefit from what we call a non-sternotomy approach.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6253 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/..\/Images\/minimally-invasive-endoscope-usage.jpg\" alt=\"Minimally Invasive Endoscope Usage\" width=\"650\" height=\"363\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Thanks Dr. Zacharias!<\/h2>\n<p>On behalf of all the patients in our community, thank you, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.josephzacharias.com\/\">Dr. Joseph Zacharias<\/a>, for everything you and your team are doing to educate patients about the importance of early intervention for the lifelong management of heart valve disease and helping patients return to a normal life expectancy curve.<\/p>\n<p>Related links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2025\/09\/04\/endoscopic-cardiac-club\/\">Heart Valve Experts Unite at Endoscopic Cardiac Surgeons Club Meeting<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.josephzacharias.com\/blog\">Read more from Dr. Zacharias on his Blog<\/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. Zacharias 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":[8],"class_list":["post-6248","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-before-surgery"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6248","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=6248"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6371,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6248\/revisions\/6371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}