Operating inside a Beating Heart

[ClickerTicker]

And here's something for us mitral valve folks:
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/21582/

researchers at Harvard University and Children's Hospital Boston are testing a robotic system that could help surgeons perform a common valve repair while the heart beats on. The system uses 3-D ultrasound images to predict and compensate for the motion of the heart so that the surgeon can work on a patient's mitral valve as it moves

 

[ALCapshaw2]

Some surgeons already do perform MVR on a Beating Heart for repeat surgeries when approached via a Right Thoracotomy (through the ribs). The reason is that they do not want to 'cross over' the heart (through previous Scar Tissue) to clamp off the Aorta. They DO put the patient on ByPass (through the groin). They have to be careful to 'pull off' any air that may get into the Aorta to prevent an 'air embolism' to the brain. (Or so it was explained to me)

 

[zipper2]

Things have and are changing,rapidly since

my surgery 16 years ago on aortic valve.

My surgeon says by the time he retires his

time in surgerys ...heart transplants will be mechanical

like our valves......WOW!!!!

zipper2 (DEB)

 

[Adrienne]

Some surgeons already do perform MVR on a Beating Heart for repeat surgeries when approached via a Right Thoracotomy (through the ribs). The reason is that they do not want to 'cross over' the heart (through previous Scar Tissue) to clamp off the Aorta. They DO put the patient on ByPass (through the groin). They have to be careful to 'pull off' any air that may get into the Aorta to prevent an 'air embolism' to the brain. (Or so it was explained to me)

I don't understand. On the one hand you say that they perform MVR on a beating heart, on the other hand, you say that they do put the patient on ByPass through the groin. If the patients are on ByPass, doesn't that mean that their heart is not beating during that time?

 

[ALCapshaw2]

I don't understand. On the one hand you say that they perform MVR on a beating heart, on the other hand, you say that they do put the patient on ByPass through the groin. If the patients are on ByPass, doesn't that mean that their heart is not beating during that time?

It's beating, but blood is NOT flowing through it, or at least the majority of the blood is not flowing through it, going through the ByPass Machine instead. (That is my simplistic understanding of the procedure anyway).