Heart Valve Replacement Treatment

Heart Valve Repair or Replacement Surgery in India

Heart Valve Repair

Heart valve repair is a surgical or minimally invasive procedure that corrects a heart valve that is not functioning properly. Heart valve repair usually involves the heart valve leaflets that open and close to pump blood through the heart.

Your cardiac surgeon shall investigate and advise if repairing your heart valve is the best way to treat your heart valve disease.

Heart Valve Replacement

When valve repair shall not be of help, replacing your damaged heart valve may be the most effective treatment for your condition. Also known as Heart Valve Replacement, Aortic Valve Replacement, is a cardiac surgery procedure in which the damaged heart valve is replaced with a new valve. This valve can be a tissue valve taken from some other body, or may be of animal or an artificial or prosthetic valve.

Heart valve repair or replacement can be done for one single valve or more than one depending upon the condition of your valves.

The patient is put under general anaesthesia and connected to the heart lung machine. This machine takes over the pumping, circulatory, and respiratory functions of the heart and lung till the surgical procedure is going on.

The valves are accessed by cutting open the rib cage and accessing the heart directly. The old valves are sliced from their attachments and new valves are put in their place. The new valves may be obtained from a cadaveric donor, or an animal (pig) or it may be made of a nonreactive inert material.

The patient needs to be given anticoagulants or immunosuppressive to clotting of blood or rejection of organ. The prognosis of this surgery is good. It is many a time a life-saving and life extending surgery.

Types of Heart Valve Replacement:-

Open-heart valve replacement surgery It is a surgical procedure wherein the patient's heart is exposed in the operation theatre and surgery is performed on the internal structures of the heart. During the surgery, the patient is placed on a heart-lung machine that allows blood to flow through the heart while the surgery is being performed.

Minimally Invasive Heart Surgery Minimally Invasive Heart Surgery, also known as Keyhole surgery, is performed by making small incisions of about 3 to 4 inches in the heart muscle, through specialized surgical instruments. In most cases, minimally invasive heart surgery focuses on Mitral valve repair, Aortic valve repair and Tricuspid valve repair.

Valvuloplasty : It is a technique wherein the stiff aortic valves are treated with the help of a balloon catheter. The balloon is positioned in the aortic valve and subsequently inflated to expand the size of the valve, leading to improved blood flow.

Double valve repair and replacement procedure aims at correcting or replacing both these damaged valves (aortic & mitral together) with new functional valves. This is done through the open heart surgery. Triple valve replacement repair and replacement means repair or replacement of three valves of the heart.

Benefits of Minimally Invasive Valve Surgery in India

Minimally invasive mitral valve repair is performed through a two-inch keyhole incision on the side of the chest. The port access technique is a step ahead in that the incision is even smaller and the whole operation is video-directed, whereas in non-port access minimally invasive mitral valve surgery, the operation is done by direct vision. The minimally invasive approaches avoid an incision in the breastbone (sternotomy) and have several benefits like:

• Less pain

• Shorter stay in hospital. Hence, patients return to work and everyday activity sooner after surgery.

• Less bleeding

• Fewer chances of infection as the incision is smaller

• Cosmetic benefits

You may want to ask some questions before your treatment begins:

What is the cost of Cardiac Valve Replacement Surgery?

Cardiac Valve Replacement Surgery is amongst the lowest in the world. The Cardiac Valve Replacement Surgery is about 20% of the cost in the USA. The low Cardiac Valve Replacement Surgery is without any compromise on quality or success rate

What to expect after heart valve surgery?

The normal recovery time after a heart valve surgery is usually four to eight weeks, and may be shorter after minimally invasive surgeries.

How experienced are cardiac surgeons in India at handling complex heart surgeries?

The translation of academic excellence into outstanding medical results happens only with practice and experience. Indian doctors acquire a great amount of experience over a very short period of time because of the large number of patients requiring cardiac treatment in India. .

Do surgeons perform advanced heart surgeries in India?

Cardiac surgeons in India are experts at performing advanced procedures like Heart Transplants, Robotic Cardiac Procedures, Totally Endoscopic Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery (TECAB), Minimally Invasive Direct Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (MIDCAB), Off-Pump Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting (OPCAB), complex mitral valve repairs, etc.

What success rates can one expect in India from cardiology hospitals?

It is quite amazing that Indian hospitals are able to offer a combination of extremely low cost cardiac treatment in India along with extremely high success rates as well. In fact, leading hospitals for cardiac treatment in India have success rates in excess of 98%, which is absolutely world-class.