Adam's Heart Valve Surgery Blog – Page 3

In case you missed it… We just posted a new educational video all about the symptoms, the risks and the treatment of aortic stenosis.  The video features Dr. Ashish Aneja who is a leading cardiologist and aortic valve specialist at MetroHealth in Cleveland, Ohio.

Click here to see the new video about aortic stenosis symptoms, risks and treatment. 

Keep on tickin,
Adam

Henrik Lundqvist, the NHL superstar goalie of the New York Rangers, is doing an extraordinary job raising awareness to heart valve disease and aortic aneurysms.

 
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Woo-Hoo!!! Amazing!!! Wonderful!!!

I am beyond excited to share that Dr. Patrick McCarthy, the Executive Director of the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute at Northwestern Medicine, just received his 200th patient testimonial at HeartValveSurgery.com.

 
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Big News!

We recently had a very special opportunity to interview Dr. Michael Reardon, the Co-Principal Investigator of the Medtronic Evolut Low-Risk TAVR Clinical Trial, while at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) Conference in San Francisco, California. My chat with Dr. Reardon was specifically about the 4-year clinical trial results for the minimally-invasive Medtronic transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedure in low-risk patients.

To learn new findings and research from the Medtronic Evolut Low-Risk TAVR Clinical Trial, click here to see my interview with Dr. Reardon.

Many thanks to Dr. Reardon for sharing his clinical experiences and research specific to the Medtronic TAVR procedure with our community.

Related Links:

• Learn about the Medtronic TAVR Procedure
• Research 50 Heart Teams that specialize in TAVR

Keep on tickin!
Adam

Amazing!

Our recent webinar, “Ask Dr. Gerdisch Anything”, brought together patients from all over the world for a live and very interactive educational event that featured Dr. Marc Gerdisch, a world-renowned heart surgeon from Franciscan Health in Indianapolis, Indiana. During his extraordinary career, Dr. Gerdisch has performed over 4,000 heart valve operations.

In case you missed the live webinar, here is a video replay…

Thanks Dr. Gerdisch & Franciscan Health!

On behalf of our patient community, I would like to extend a tremendous thank you to Dr. Gerdisch for sharing his research and clinical experiences specific to heart valve disease management and treatment!

Keep on tickin!
Adam

[May 23, 2024 Update: Our patient webinar, “Ask Dr. Gerdisch Anything”, was an extraordinary success. To watch a video replay of the webinar, please click this link.]

For this reason, we are hosting a special FREE and LIVE webinar that will provide you a unique opportunity to ask your questions to Dr. Marc Gerdisch, a world-renowned heart surgeon and Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Franciscan Health, who has performed over 4,000 heart valve operations. Dr. Gerdisch specializes in minimally-invasive surgery, rapid recovery protocols for patients, and clinical trial research.

Over 500 patients have already registered for the webinar! More good news…  If you have not registered yet, you can still join us for this special community event.

This is going to be great!

Keep on tickin,
Adam

Hearing from patients about their heart valve success stories is my favorite part of running the HeartValveSurgery.com community.

For example, here is the fantastic patient story of Koert Takkunen, a 52-year bicuspid aortic valve and aortic aneurysm patient from El Dorado Hills, California (which is just outside of Sacramento).

Koert Takkunen and Dr. Paul Stelzer at Mount Sinai Hospital

 
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At the recent American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) meeting, Dr. Marc Gerdisch presented new findings for the long-term safety of the On-X mechanical aortic valve at a low International Normalized Ratio (INR).  INR is a standardized method to assess the degree of anticoagulation in the blood.  This is critical for patients who receive mechanical valve replacements as they require lifelong anticoagulation (e.g. use of blood thinners) to prevent clotting which could lead to a stroke.

To help our patient community better understand the important implications of this study about the On-X mechanical valve replacements, I asked Dr. Gerdisch to share the highlights.

On-X Mechanical Aortic Valve (Source: Artivion)

 
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It’s not every day that I get invited to participate in a historic patient advocacy effort for women’s heart health.  So, when I learned about the first-ever Women’s Heart Health Congressional Day organized by WomenHeart, Women As One and Medtronic, I quickly booked a flight to Washington, DC.

 
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Wonderful news!!! I am excited to announce that Hartford HealthCare from Hartford, Connecticut just became the newest sponsor of HeartValveSurgery.com.

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Congratulations to Andy Dial, a Ross Procedure patient from Pullayup, Washington and member of the HeartValveSurgery.com, for the wonderful release of his new video, “Heart Warrior”.  I am touched, moved and inspired by Andy’s patient advocacy efforts to drive awareness to the Ross Procedure, Dr. Christopher Burke, his surgeon, and the medical team at UW Medicine Heart Institute that helped save Andy’s life.

If you have yet to see Andy’s new video, here it is…

On behalf of our entire community, many thanks to Andy for sharing his heart surgery journey in this video.  And, many thanks to Ryan Miller, the producer of Heart Warrior, for doing such an incredible job on this video. Lastly, many thanks to Dr. Christopher Burke and UW Medicine for taking such great care of Andy!

Related links:

• Send Andy a message here
• Ross Procedure: 10+ Facts to Know
• Meet Dr. Christopher Burke: Andy’s Heart Surgeon

Keep on tickin’ Andy!
Adam

Aortic valve stenosis is deadly and under-treated form of heart valve disease.  So, to continue my mission of patient education and patient empowerment, I am happy to share that we just launched a new “Aortic Stenosis & TAVR Patient Education Center” at HeartValveSurgery.com. 

Thanks to the support of world-renowned aortic valve experts, including Drs. Aneja, Deeb, Grubb and Reardon, this new platform provides the latest medical insights specific to the dangerous risks, the debilitating symptoms, surgical therapies, and the minimally-invasive treatment of aortic stenosis using the Medtronic TAVR procedure.

Click here to experience the new Aortic Stenosis & TAVR Patient Education Center.

 
On behalf of our patient community, many thanks to Dr. Ashish Aneja, Dr. G. Michael Deeb, Dr. Kendra Grubb, Dr. Michael Reardon and the entire Structural Heart Team at Medtronic for supporting this global educational initiative.

Keep on tickin!
Adam

I just received a great question from William about the Ross Procedure, an advanced form of aortic valve replacement that moves the patient’s pulmonary valve into the aortic position.

A Wrapped Pulmonary Valve Used During Ross Procedure

 
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I’ve said it before and I look forward to saying it again…

Hearing from patients about their heart valve success stories remains my favorite part of running this website.  For example, here is a fantastic patient story from Lynn Friedman who overcame a very complex form severe mitral regurgitation thanks to Dr. Joanna Chikwe, Dr. Dominic Emerson and the entire team at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Lynn Friedman With Jim, Her Husband

 
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Fantastic!

During our recent patient webinar, “5 Warning Signs You May Need Heart Valve Surgery”, I received 43 questions that we did not have time to answer during the live event. Imagine my surprise when Dr. Kevin Hodges, a leading minimally-invasive heart surgeon at Northwestern Medicine and the featured speaker of the webinar, typed up answers to each patient question and asked me to post them here to help educate our patient community.

Question #1: Deborah asks, “Had an aortic bivalve replaced in 2017. Now another valve is beginning to regurgitate…moderately… Is this unusual, when I haven’t had any issues with other valves before, or does this happen?

Every patient, heart, and valve is a little bit different. We do see that over time patients may develop new or worsening regurgitation in a different valve. For instance, a patient with a previous aortic valve operation may subsequently develop mitral valve regurgitation, which is not necessarily unusual. We would recommend monitoring the other valve with regular echocardiograms and looking out for signs and symptoms of heart failure or decreased heart function. If the regurgitation becomes severe, it is possible you may need a second procedure. — Dr. Kevin Hodges

 
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Wonderful!

Our recent webinar, “5 Warning Signs You May Need Heart Valve Surgery”, brought together patients from all over the world for this live educational event that featured Dr. Kevin Hodges, a leading minimally-invasive heart valve surgeon from Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, Illinois.

In case you missed the webinar, here is a video replay of the webinar that has already been watched over 1,500 times on YouTube.

Thanks Dr. Hodges & Northwestern Medicine!

On behalf of our patient community, I would like to extend a tremendous thank you to Dr. Hodges at Northwestern Medicine for sharing his research and clinical experiences specific to the five warning signs of heart valve disease!

Keep on tickin!
Adam

P.S. You can also download a free copy of our new eBook, “5 Warning Signs You May Need Heart Valve Surgery”, at this link.

[April 11, 2024 Update: Our webinar, “5 Warning Signs You May Need Heart Valve Surgery”, was an extraordinary success. To watch a video replay of the webinar, please click this link.]

I’m excited to announce that our LIVE and FREE patient education events continue today, April 11, with a special webinar, “5 Warning Signs You May Need Heart Valve Surgery”. The featured speaker of the webinar is Dr. Kevin Hodges, a leading heart valve surgeon that specializes in minimally invasive procedures.  The one-hour webinar will start at 6pm EST.

We will also have a live “Questions & Answers” session where YOU can ask your questions to Dr. Hodges.

This is going to be great!

Keep on tickin!
Adam

If you didn’t know… Bono, U2’s lead singer, revealed in the first chapter of his book, Surrender, that he underwent a complex heart valve and aortic aneurysm surgery in 2016. It turns out that Dr. David Adams, a leading cardiac surgeon and friend of our community, performed Bono’s surgery.

To check-in on Bono’s heart, I recently traveled to Las Vegas where U2 was playing the first-ever residency at the new Sphere.

Click here to see my new video about Bono’s heart surgery success story.

Many thanks to Dr. Adams and the entire Mount Sinai team for taking such great care of Bono!

Keep on tickin’ Bono!
Adam

At the recent 60th Annual Meeting of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons in San Antonio, I learned A LOT of great information about heart valve defects and related cardiac conditions.

For example… The American Heart Association (AHA) finally updated its guidelines specific to the treatment of atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat, during heart valve surgery to prevent stroke risks. As this is BIG news, I interviewed Dr. Patrick McCarthy, the Executive Director of the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, to learn more about the new guidelines.

Click here to see my interview with Dr. McCarthy about the new AHA Guidelines for the treatment of atrial fibrillation during open-heart surgery to prevent stroke.

Many thanks to Dr. Patrick McCarthy for sharing all of this important information about atrial fibrillation, heart valve disease and stroke risks with our patient community!

Keep on tickin!
Adam

As many of you have been following my son’s passion for robotics, I am happy to share that Ethan’s team won the VEX Robotics California State Championship last weekend in San Diego. To claim the title, Ethan’s team went on an extraordinary and undefeated 13-0 run.

If you are not familiar with the VEX Robotics Competition, here’s a quick video showing Ethan’s team competing on a “field of play”.  As you will see, the robotic teams built these amazing robots that are designed to perform several tasks during a “match”. This year, the robots get points for developing autonomous self-driving software, scoring goals and climbing poles. In addition, it’s really important that the robots can also play defense.

 
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