“Improving Heart Valve Surgery Safety with Technological Advances” Video Now Featured at HeartValveSurgery.com
San Bernardino, California (PRWEB) August 05, 2014 -- HeartValveSurgery.com, the largest educational resource and community of patients with heart valve disease, announced today that a new video, “Ask The Expert: Improving Cardiac Surgery Safety with Technological Advances” is now available.
According to a scientific study on valvular diseases, each year, over five million people are diagnosed with heart valve disorders including aortic stenosis and mitral regurgitation. Similar to other congenital and degenerative conditions, the diagnosis of heart valve disease can range from mild to moderate to severe to life threatening.
Valvular defects can cause persistent and uncomfortable symptoms for patients including shortness of breath, chest pain and fatigue. Patients with severe valvular disorders can experience irreversible damage to their cardiac muscle, congestive heart failure and death.
To treat dysfunctional valves – which can be narrowed, floppy or structurally inadequate to manage blood flow through the heart – cardiac surgeons perform heart valve repair and heart valve replacement procedures.
In 1923, the first heart valve surgery, a mitral valve repair, was performed by Dr. Elliot Carter of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital on a 12-year old girl with rheumatic fever. Today, over 250,000 annual heart valve procedures are performed on a global basis.
Medical technology has transformed the safety and surgical outcomes of open-heart valve procedures.
In particular, the development of the heart lung machine in the 1950’s was a significant milestone in the evolution of valvular therapy as surgeons could work on the cardiac muscle at rest. Other technological advances include mitral valve repair devices (annuloplasty rings), minimally invasive approaches (port access), robotic-assisted surgery and transcatheter valve therapy.
“During my 30-year career, I have seen surgical outcomes for heart valve patients significantly improve thanks to advances in medical technology,” stated Christopher Gibson, MD, a leading cardiac surgeon at the Inland Empire Heart & Vascular Institute at St. Bernardine Medical Center in San Bernardino, California.
Dr. Gibson, who has performed over 2,000 heart valve procedures during his career, said there are three important technologies which have advanced the safety and surgical outcomes for patients with heart valve disease. First of all, as Dr. Gibson explains, “retrograde cardioplegia better preserves and protects the heart while the patient is on cardio-pulmonary bypass. Secondly, smaller, more agile clamps minimize the risk of stroke during an operation. And finally, heart valve repair and replacement devices are better designed for the specific needs of each patient.”
The use of such technologies, along with ongoing research, improved surgical practices and physician experience, has resulted in significant improvements in the safety and the surgical outcomes of valvular procedures.
“At the forefront of all we do is to strive for the highest quality outcomes for our patients at St. Bernardine Medical Center. These advancements in the heart valve surgery specialty further enhance the safety and surgical outcomes of cardiac procedures, and that’s in our patients’ best interest,” said Dr. Gibson.
To learn more, you can watch “Ask The Expert: Improving Cardiac Surgery Safety with Technological Advances”, featuring St. Bernardine Medical Center-affiliated surgeon Dr. Christopher Gibson, by clicking here.
About HeartValveSurgery.com
Founded in 2006, HeartValveSurgery.com (HVS) is the world’s largest educational resource and online community of patients with heart valve disease. HVS provides patients, their families and their friends a trusted platform for each step in the surgical cycle -- from diagnosis to recovery.
The HVS platform includes a social network, a surgeon finder, a valve clinic directory, a microsite application, an educational video library, a learning center, a book and a blog. During 2013, HeartValveSurgery.com received 1 million visits.
About St. Bernardine Medical Center’s Inland Empire Heart & Vascular Institute
Serving the heart health needs of the people of the Inland Empire for more than 50 years, St. Bernardine’s Inland Empire Heart & Vascular Institute is the second largest heart program in Southern California and one of the 10 largest in the state. A regional leader in cardiac care, the Inland Empire Heart & Vascular Institute is located within St. Bernardine Medical Center in San Bernardino, California, just off the 210 freeway at Waterman Avenue.
St. Bernardine offers a full continuum of services, from family care to heart surgery, treating an average of 72,000 individuals in the Emergency Department, delivering 2,100 babies, and performing 32,700 heart procedures including 730 open heart surgeries and more than 6,000 diagnostic and interventional procedures in the cardiac catheterization labs in the last year alone. The Inland Empire Heart & Vascular Institute at St. Bernardine is nationally recognized and most recently received the Healthgrades® 2014 Five-Star designations for coronary bypass surgery and treatment of heart failure. Bernardine Medical Center is a member of Dignity Health. Visit http://www.StBernardineMedicalCenter.org for additional information.
Robyn Podell, HeartValveSurgery.com, http://www.HeartValveSurgery.com, +1 (310) 721-0587, [email protected]
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