Adam's Heart Valve Surgery Blog – Page 7

Within minutes of announcing the launch of Mitral Valve Awareness Disease Week, my inbox started to receive great patient stories in response to this global initiative.

For example, this email from Howard Powders really demonstrates the insidious nature of mitral valve disease. As you read Howard’s story, please consider that patients with severe mitral valve disease – who do not get treatment – have a mortality rate of 20% after one year and 50% after 5 years.

Howard & Erlinda Powders

 
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The health risks and concerns specific to mitral valve disease are downright scary.

How scary? Watch this video to find out why we’re launching a global campaign, known as “Mitral Valve Disease Awareness Week”, to raise awareness and encourage effective treatment of this deadly disease.

 
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There is a fundamental lack of awareness to mitral valve disease. In addition, mitral valve disease is significantly under-treated. Sadly, mitral valve disease is also deadly.

For these critical reasons, we are launching “Mitral Valve Disease Awareness Week” to raise awareness to this very debilitating and insidious type of heart disease.  In this video, Dr. Pavan Atluri, a leading mitral valve surgeon at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, shares important insights about the symptoms, the causes and the risks of mitral valve disease.

 
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There is “bad news” and “good news” specific to mitral valve disease treatment.  The bad news is that only 15% of mitral valve patients get treatment.  The good news is that mitral valve disease treatment is safe, effective and can restore normal life expectancy.

As this is Mitral Valve Disease Awareness Week, we want to help you become aware of mitral valve disease and the different types of treatments available to patients. For this reason, we just interviewed Dr. Joanna Chikwe, Chair of Cardiac Surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, to learn about the different therapeutic approaches for fixing a defective mitral valve.

 
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When patients learn they need mitral valve surgery, patients may become confused about their surgical options, timing the procedure, selecting their medical team, and developing a lifelong plan for the management of mitral valve disease.

During Mitral Valve Disease Awareness Week, we want to help patients better understand the important considerations for mitral valve therapy.  For that reason, I hosted a “Surgeon Roundtable” with Dr. Michael Acker and Dr. Michael Ibrahim, two leading mitral valve surgeons from Penn Medicine Heart and Vascular Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

 
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In support of Mitral Valve Disease Awareness Week, we hosted a live interactive webinar titled, “Advances in Mitral Valve Therapy”, with Dr. Joanna Chikwe, the Chair of Cardiac Surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Dr. Dominic Emerson, Director of Robotic Cardiac Surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and the patients in our community.  Here’s a playback of the webinar.

Keep Learning About Mitral Valve Disease

As part of Mitral Valve Disease Awareness Week, we’re sharing new information to educate you about the management and the treatment of mitral valve disease including:

• Transcatheter Mitral Valve Surgery: What Should Patients Know?
• Surgeon Q&A: Recovery from Mitral Valve Surgery
• Mitral Valve Disease Awareness Week Educational Microsite

Keep on tickin!
Adam

Earlier in Mitral Valve Disease Awareness Week, we shared the “Top 5 Considerations for Mitral Valve Surgery Patients” which addressed the use of new transcatheter mitral valve therapies for non-invasive mitral valve repair and mitral valve replacement operations.  These mitral valve therapies require no incision to the patient’s chest and no use of the heart-lung machine.

To learn more about these next-generation therapies for the treatment of mitral valve disease, we interviewed Dr. Howard Herrmann, a leading interventional cardiologist from Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

 
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During the past 20 years, the patient experience following mitral valve surgery has greatly improved.  Minimally-invasive techniques, new surgical protocols,  and the use of nerve blocks have greatly enhanced recovery.  Still, patients often wonder, “What should I expect during the recovery from mitral valve surgery?”

To answer this question during Mitral Valve Disease Awareness Week, we interviewed Dr. Dominic Emerson, Surgical Co-Director of the Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.

 
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So far, during Mitral Valve Disease Awareness Week, we’ve focused on the management and the treatment of isolated mitral valve disease. However, many patients with mitral valve disease are also diagnosed with related cardiac conditions including coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation and aortic aneurysms.

To learn more about the advanced treatment of complex mitral valve and associated heart disease types, we interviewed Dr. Wilson Szeto, the Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

 
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Medical advances are rapidly transforming mitral valve disease therapy.  As a result, both surgical and transcatheter techniques are providing mitral valve patients better outcomes and better therapeutic experiences with less pain and discomfort.

For the last post of Mitral Valve Disease Awareness Week, we interviewed Dr. Joanna Chikwe, the Chair of Cardiac Surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.  Doctor Chikwe is a leading robotic mitral valve surgeon who has successfully treated many patients in our commnunity including Leila Saedi and Lisa Harrington.

 
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Dear Patients and Friends,

In 2009, we launched the Surgeon Finder to help people find and research patient-recommended heart valve surgeons. Since then, the Surgeon Finder has over 2 Million page views!

To help future patients… My question to you is, “If you already had heart valve surgery, would you recommend your surgeon?” This is a great opportunity to celebrate your surgeon by posting a review. Click Here to Post Your Surgeon Review!

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I could ramble-on about the serendipitous moment we just experienced at The Society of Thoracic Surgeons Conference in San Diego. Instead, I will simply encourage you to click the play button on the video below to see why Amy’s question about small incisions brought a huge smile to the faces of Dr. Kevin Accola and myself.

 
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What do you think? Is the tricuspid valve still known as the “Forgotten Valve” in medical circles?  Are tricuspid valve patients still not getting diagnosed or treated for this serious, complicated and debilitating disease?

To answer these important questions, we were very fortunate to interview Dr. Gorav Ailawadi, the Chair of Cardiac Surgery at Michigan Medicine. Click here to see our video interview with Dr. Ailawadi about the “forgotten valve”.

 
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I’m fascinated by how people are using social media.

For example, I just learned that Dr. Raymond Singer, the Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Einstein Medical Center Montgomery – Jefferson Health, is using social media to educate, empower and connect with heart valve patients. At TikTok, Dr. Singer has over 81,000 followers. Amazing!

 
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I just received a very interesting question from Michael about mitral regurgitation and stroke.

In his email, Michael wrote to me, “Hi Adam, I am diagnosed with moderate-to-severe mitral regurgitation. I recently had a stroke while on a bike and crashed. The most of obvious causes of stroke have been eliminated. Afib, atrial fibrillation, is a consideration but not proven at this point. Can mitral regurgitation cause a stroke?”

To answer Michael’s question, I connected with Dr. Michael Acker, Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During his extraordinary career, Dr. Acker has performed over 3,000 heart valve operations. In our community, Dr. Acker has successfully treated Patricia Garcia, Michael Casey, and Theresa Gusset.

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Hearing from patients all around the world is one of my favorite parts of running this website.  For example, I was so happy to receive the following note from Rajan, an aortic valve replacement patient, from Iceland.

Rajan with Dr. Anders Jeppsson

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Hey Everybody,

Thanks to your requests, we just launched a new “Find Members” feature in our Community for logged-in members! Here’s a quick video that explains how it works at the Patient News Feed.

Thanks to all the patients who requested this new feature. I hope it helps you!

Keep on tickin!
Adam

In response to our new post about radiation therapy associated heart valve disease with Dr. Douglas Johnston, I just received three, important follow-up questions from Christine.

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After my open-heart surgery and my wife’s brain surgery, Robyn and I committed ourselves to a healthy lifestyle.

An unexpected ingredient in our wellness recipe has been the addictive use of Peloton exercise classes. For me, the Peloton instructors are my favorite part of this next-gen fitness platform. Every time I need a mental reset or an inspirational jolt, the Peloton coaches – including Robin, Denis, Alex, Ben, Andy and Matt – always deliver a righteous, body-brain experience.

Emma Lovewell

 
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While cancer treatments for conditions including Hodgkin’s disease are often called “medical miracles” by patients, their families and friends, there can be unfortunate side effects from radiation therapy.  Specific to our community, patients may experience a unique form of heart valve disease following radiation treatment.

To learn more, I just interviewed Dr. Douglas Johnston, the Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, who has performed over 3,000 heart valve repair and replacement operations.

Click here to see my interview with Dr. Douglas Johnston.

 
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