It’s possible I misheard. I’m listening to a ball game on the radio, and there’s an advertisement for some local hospital. I’m not certain, but I could swear it said that they can replace heart valves through a two-inch incision.
Really?
I’m no doctor, but isn’t a valve replacement something you have to stop the heart for? Which means a heart/lung machine, which means needing to open up someone’s rib cage, which requires significantly more cutting than a two-inch incision, doesn’t it? I know that (granted, about 15 years ago) my grandmother had bypass surgery, and they did the whole ‘slice pretty much your entire body open’ thing*.
So can they really do things like replace a valve in your heart without hacking you in half now?
*Yeah, Grandma vividly described the details of her heart surgery to her 7-year-old granddaughter.
I have heard that it is possible, but when I suggested it to my surgeon, Dr. Charles Hoopes of UCSF he said there is no way they would attempt to repair/replace my mitral valve except through open heart surgery because they had to examine the heart. My operation turned out to be a repair on examination, which is a far superior outcome as the replacement valves do not last nearly as long and anti-rejection regimes are usually needed for the replacements. Replacements are titanium alloys or “porcine” (pig valves). A repair typically will last at least twice as long if not indefinitely.
I heard it from a nurse that it was possible and done in Germany regularly.
The most difficult part of heart surgery for me was recovering from having my sternum sawed open. It took six months for me to be able to move around in the same way with the same degree of confidence.
“Keyhole” valve replacement is indeed the minimalist approach, a bit improvement to having one’s chest cracked and all that forcible restructuring of excess anatomy.
BUT: One must be a qualified candidate. Not all patients can have it done this way. And one needs to check with their local cardiovascular surgeon to see just what type of patients he/she is willing to perform it on.
My girlfriend has trouble with her mitral valve and is looking into this robotic assisted surgery. There just happens to be an expert in town with a robot at the ready, and while researching it online, we read that the local childrens hospital bought a robot a year ago but hasn’t used it yet. It seems like something that may be becoming semi-common in hospitals willing to shell out the cash for the robot.
I remember in high school a friend of mine tore up his knee, and the scar from the repair was a good 12" long. My wife had her entire knee replaced a couple of years ago and ended up with a 3" scar. So yeah, I suppose it’s possible.
Modern cataract surgery can be completed via a 2mm hole in the eye, using ultrasonics to destroy the old lens and a rolled up soft replacement lens.
And using a macerator (basically an endoscopic blender) an entire organ (kidney, spleen, gallbladder) can be extracted via the navel, vagina or mouth. No scars, indeed.
The DaVinci Robot can do some amazing things. My Sweetie is a tech and although his hospital doesn’t do heart surgeries, yet, they do prostate, hysterectomy and bariatric surgery.
I’d post a link, if I knew how…