The Mitral Valve Repair Reference Center at The Mount Sinai Hospital is one of the most advanced in the country. The superiority of mitral valve repair over mitral valve replacement with a mechanical or bioprosthetic valve is well established. The Mitral Valve Repair Reference Center at Mount Sinai offers patients the highest percentage of mitral valve repair available anywhere in the world.

In patients with mitral valve prolapse, our success rate in avoiding mitral valve replacement approaches 100%. We also have mitral valve repair expertise for patients with advanced cardiomyopathy. If patients have associated atrial fibrillation, we offer the latest in concomitant arrhythmia surgery, including the MAZE procedure. We also perform mitral valve repair surgery with minimally invasive approaches, when appropriate.

The new American College of Cardiology-American Heart Association Guidelines for Management of Patients with Valvular Heart Disease have introduced the concept of ‘reference center’ referral to ensure patients who have complex degenerative valve disease requiring surgery have the best possible chance of avoiding a valve replacement, particularly in the asymptomatic setting. Criteria to define a ‘reference center’ for mitral valve repair were not given, but phrases such as high likelihood of repair depends on the ‘skill and experience of the surgeon’ are inferential to reference centers. The United Kingdom is also starting to explore the concept of best-practice standards for patients with degenerative mitral valve disease, suggesting a surgeon undertaking such procedures should perform a minimum of 25 mitral valve repairs a year, and a center 50 repairs a year, to be part of a network of mitral valve repair centers.

Perhaps of more significance, it was explicitly recognized that patients with Barlow’s disease should ideally be referred to ‘super-specialists’ to increase the likelihood of valve repair. Although healthcare purchasers have not yet become involved, it is significant that Dr. Bernadine Healy, former head of the National Institutes of Health and the American Red Cross, wrote a recent article in a major US news magazine entitled ‘The Mitral Valve Question’, which highlighted in clear layman’s terms that too many patients undergo inappropriate mitral valve replacement. The relevance of reference center referral is summarized in the advice she gave to a patient with mitral regurgitation a decade earlier – ‘someday he would likely need an operation, and wherever he was, whoever his doctor was, he must go to a place skilled at repair’. Such counseling should also apply today to most of our patients requiring elective surgery for mitral regurgitation.

Dr. David Adams & Dr. Ani Anyanwu Use Special Instruments
to Perform Minimally Invasive Heart Valve Surgery

Learn more.

The Mount Sinai Hospital has assembled a special team of heart valve specialists that are committed to getting patients the best results. Our team consists of many leading surgeons and cardiologists that you can learn more about by clicking the links below:

To help you learn more about The Mount Sinai Hospital, here are references for you:

• Visit our website
• Traveling to our center
• Meet our surgeons
• Video presentations
• High-definition surgical videos
• Minimally Invasive Surgery Center