Mitral regurgitation is one of the most common valve diseases in the US, but for some patients, traditional surgical approaches are not an option. In these cases, a minimally invasive technique involving a MitraClip is sometimes used in patients with significant symptomatic MR.
The MitraClip procedure does not require open-heart surgery or cardiopulmonary bypass. Rather, a surgeon guides a catheter through a vein in the leg up to the heart. Through this tube, the MitraClip is guided up to the mitral valve and then clipped onto the valve, allowing it to close more completely and thus restoring normal blood flow in the heart.
Since it is minimally invasive, there is no need for a lengthy hospital stay after the procedure (an average of 3 days is typical). The procedure has been shown to reduce hospital visits for complications from heart failure from mitral regurgitation by 73%.
Click HERE to read more on their official site.
Below is a photo of me and some of my colleagues at a recent training session in California to learn this new procedure.
Dr. Raymond Singer, Dr. William Combs, Dr. James Wu, Dr. Dennis Chyung, Dr. Pat Kleaveland and Mr. Kevin Zhang from Abbott
