Aortic Valve Repair

[Tom F.]

Lately I have seen mentioned a few times the concept of bicuspid aortic valve repair. Earlier today I found an abstract of a recent article in the Jornal of Thoracic Cardiovascular Surgey that discusses valve repair in general, and states that among those people studied 34% of the group, a total of 54 people, had repairs done to their bicuspid aortic valve. Some people might find this article interesting. Hopefully the link will work !


http://jtcs.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/127/3/645

 

[ar bee]

the link works...

the link works...

but i find the numbers fairly non-convincing... I mean 16/159 re-operations within <3y?? and 16/159 late deaths within such a short time period??? OUCH

seems that there seems no way around a new valve for the time being...

 

[ar bee]

the link works...

the link works...

but i find the numbers fairly non-convincing... I mean 16/159 re-operations within <3y?? and 16/159 late deaths within such a short time period??? OUCH

seems that there seems no way around a new valve for the time being...

 

[Tom F.]

Well the numbers are what the numbers are. However it should be noted that the time frame covered by this study was from 1986 to 2001. If you look at the history of valve repair jobs the technology of the surgery has changed a lot in the last decade. I posted this because it discusses the repair and not replacement of bicuspid aortic valves, something you do not find mentioned very often.

 

[KathyH]

I think they are perfecting aortic repair now. My surgeon, Dr Cohn from Brigham & Women's in Boston is very confindent in his repairs. He told me if he can fix my aortic valve, it should last me my life. I know there is never a 100% sure thing, but I think you have to find out how many repairs your surgeon has done and how many he has had to redo.
Kathy H

 

[Tom F.]

Kathy, I agree. In December of 2002 I had an aortic valve repair done at the time they replaced a part of my ascending aorta. It took me a while to find a doctor willing to do it, and experienced in the surgery. But my guy was very comfortable going in that I would have a repair that would last. Since then I have tried to read abstracts of articles by docs that have performed these surgeries in great numbers. They all report a few failures, but the vast majority of people seem to do well and most so far do not need additional surgeries.

 

[bethanne]

My hope would be for future generations, that at an early age repairs can be done before patients become symptomatic and possibly prevent left ventricle dysfunctiona and ideally AVR altogether. All three of my daughters have had echos and do not have bi-cuspid aortic valve.
My son is 11, I have not had him tested as yet. I am taking him to a specialist at Texas Children's regarding activity induced asthma. I am not a hundred percent that this is the cause of his symptoms...

But if it turns out he has the bi-c valve. I like to think a repair early on would prevent replacement and or problems later on...