Mitral Valve Repair by catherization.....

[Jkm7]

I've read several articles recently about mitral valve repairs being done by catheter method rather than open chest surgery. I don't know how dependable or reliable the articles I read are.

Is this new method perfected and being used yet? Or is something we'll see sometime in the future?

 

[BackDoc]

http://www.clevelandclinic.org/heartcenter/pub/history/future/default.asp?firstCat=56&secondCat=57

 

[Adrienne]

In the fall of 2004 when I was going crazy getting zillions of opinions about if I needed surgery or not, my cousin in NY who is a doctor and who did an echo in his office for me (we drove to NY) said afterwards that I could probably have that EVALVE procedure by Dr. Mehmet Oz. He said it was experimental and that I wouldn't have to pay (I live in Canada, so if I had surgery in the States, I would normally have to pay for it). I didn't want anything experimental to begin with. Besides that, one thing that really worries me about it (maybe I'm wrong to worry about this) is that if just a little clip is holding the valve, and if ever the clip comes loose or whatever, all of a sudden the valve would go from zero or trace regurgitation back to severe regurgitation - all in about a second!! When regurgitation gets worse gradually, the heart seems to compensate for a long time. If it happened suddenly, it would not have time to compensate, and I don't even want to think what would happen!

As it turned out, I had a lot of calcification on my valve, plus I ended up with a maze procedure and the patching up of an atrial septal defect, so I am very glad I did not have the EVALVE procedure.