Robotic Heart Surgery: How Can Women Prepare? - Dr. Raczkowski

Dr. Raczkowski:

If a woman has a cardiac condition and requires, let’s again use the example of valve surgery, mitral valve prolapse, which has resulted in regurgitation severe enough that it needs to be corrected, in terms of getting ready for that procedure, the standard preoperative evaluations are done to make sure one, that the valve is repairable, may need replacement, what the cause of the problem was, to see what the function of the heart muscle is, to make sure if they are an older individual that they don’t have associated obstructions in the coronary arteries that may require additional procedures, things of that nature.

Once those things have been set, then the usual parameters we use for the pre-op patient are in place. In other words, we want to make sure there’s no active infections going on; we check their blood work to make sure there’s no abnormalities in that setting; we make sure that there aren’t any other conditions, which would affect the surgery itself and affect their risks for the operation.

About Dr. Raczkowski, M.D.:
Dr. Allen Raczkowski, certified by the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, leads the robotic heart surgery program at Banner Heart Hospital. He has performed nearly 400 procedures using that surgical system, making the Banner Heart Hospital robotic surgery program one of the top three in the nation.

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Tags

• Heart Disease