Heart Valve Replacement Surgery
What is it?
If the aortic valve or any other heart valve is not functioning properly, blood will not flow through the heart correctly. This puts extra strain on the heart and can cause breathlessness, swollen ankles and other symptoms, and it can cause the heart to pump less efficiently. Heart valve replacement and repair surgery can stop or improve symptoms, and may prevent permanent damage to the heart.
Minimally Invasive Valve Replacement/Repair
Standard open-heart surgery typically requires exposure of the heart and its vessels through median sternotomy (dividing the breastbone), which requires a 10- to 12-inch incision and is considered one of the most invasive and traumatic aspects of open-heart surgery.
The Mount Sinai Heart Institute offers an advanced one-man surgical technique minimally invasive procedure perfected by Joseph Lamelas, M.D., chief of cardiac surgery. The procedure is done through a two-inch incision between the ribs on the side of the chest. This approach provides much more stability to the chest wall and is more beneficial to the patient. There also is minimal scarring with this technique, and patients generally stay in the hospital for four days, as opposed to two weeks of recovery for open-heart surgery.
In addition, with minimally invasive valve replacement or repair surgery, patients experience:
- Reduced pain and trauma
- Less blood loss
- Lower risk of infection
- Quicker recuperation
- More rapid return to normal lifestyle
- Significantly reduced risk factors in future operations
Minimally Invasive Valve Surgery Porcedures
- Mitral Valve Repair/Replacement
- Aortic Valve Repair Surgery
- Aortic Valve Replacement Surgery
- Aortic Root Enlargening Procedures
- Tricuspid Valve Repair
- Double Valve Surgery
- Redo Valvular Surgery
- MAZE procedure
Last update: May 19, 2011
Cardiac Surgical Procedures
- Angioplasty
- Balloon Valvuloplasty
- Carotid Endarterectomy
- Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery (CABG)
- Coronary Balloon Angioplasty & Stents
- Endovascular Repair
- Heart Valve Surgery (Valve Repair)
- Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator
- Minimally Invasive Valve Repair
- Mitral Valve Repair
- Pacemaker Insertion
- Value Replacement