The Mount Sinai Hospital The Mitral Foundation

  • How Mitral Valve Heart Surgery Patients Can Get the Best Results

    Choosing the right surgeon to fix a leaky mitral valve - which can cause blood to flow backwards into the lungs and often leads to shortness of breath and chest pain is a critical decision.

    When patients have mitral valve disease, the small flaps that open and close to let oxygen-rich blood flow through the heart do not work as they should. Choosing the right surgeon to fix a leaky mitral valve - which can cause blood to flow backwards into the lungs and often leads to sho...

    May 02, 2017 | Consumer Reports

  • Assessment of longitudinal myocardial mechanics in patients with degenerative mitral valve regurgitation predicts postoperative worsening of left ventricular systolic function.

    Dimosthenis Pandis, MD, Partho P. Sengupta, MD, Javier Castillo, MD, Guiseppe Caracciolo, MD, PhD, Gregory W. Fischer, MD, Jagat Narula, MD, PhD, Anelechi C. Anyanwu, MD, and David H. Adams, MD

    The optimal timing of mitral valve repair (MVr) in patients with chronic severe degenerative mitral regurgitation (MR) remains controversial and is broadly based on either measurable loss of systolic function, as determined by left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction (LVEF) and/or LV cha...

    June 01, 2014 | Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography

  • Video-atlas on minimally invasive mitral valve surgery-The David Adams technique.

    Javier Castillo, MD, Fred Milla, MD, Anelechi C. Anyanwu, MD, and David H. Adams, MD

    Median sternotomy has unquestionably evolved over recent decades. Modern sternotomy involves a 7-8 cm lower midline skin incision, tunneling of the subcutaneous tissues with subsequent creation of myocutaneous flaps, full sternotomy, and standard cardiopulmonary bypass techniques with c...

    November 01, 2013 | Annals of Cardiothoracic Surgery

  • Making the Diagnosis

    Essentially, all degenerative mitral valves are repairable. By matching echocardiographic findings to the appropriate surgical skill level required to consistently deliver a repair, valve replacement for degenerative mitral valve disease should be infrequent. Fig 1: Echocardiography with dopplerMost patients with mitral regurgitation remain asymptomatic for long periods ...

  • Mitral Valve Repair

    Interactive 3D mitral valveWhat is mitral valve repair?The preferred treatment for patients with mitral valve disease is repair of their native valve. This requires special expertise, but the advantages for the patient are significant and include improved life expectancy, avoidance of long-term anticoagulation (use of blood thinners), and better preservation of native heart function.We use various...

  • When to Consider Surgery

    When Dr. Eisenberg found out he needed mitral valve repair, he said "you go to the place where you'll have the best result." He chose to have Dr. Adams perform his operation. The decision to refer or accept a patient for mitral valve surgery is substantially different than for most other cardiac surgical operations. Unlike other structural cardiac diseases, completely asymptomatic patients at ver...