Baton Rouge, LA (NBC 33/Fox 44)
The focus in this month’s Heartbeat reports is on structural heart disease, which includes problems problems with the tissues or valves of the heart.
Experts say many structural heart diseases are congenital, which means a person is born with them. But some, develop later in life.
Regardless of when they’re diagnosed, structural heart issues, can cause life threateaning problems. Take heart valve disease, for instance. That happens when one or more of the heart’s valves isn’t working the way it should to keep blood flowing.
In the past, a diagnosis like that would have meant open heart surgery. But according to the Cardiovascular Institute of the South’s Dr. Garland Green, that’s not the case anymore.
“When we talk to a patient, the last thing they want to hear is that we’re gonna cut your chest open,” Dr. Green says. “So we have, over the last ten to fifteen years, really focused on ways that we can treat complex cardiac diseases without having to do open surgeries.”
Dr. Green says there will always be a place for open surgeries. But, thankfully, many of these processes that involve the walls of the heart, involve the chambers of the heart, and involve the valves of the heart, can often be done with limited invasiveness.
That’s what the cardiovascular Institute of the South’s comprehensive Structural Heart Program does. We’ll talk more about the treatments available throughouth this month. In the meantime, you can check out what CIS’s Structural Heart Program involves, by heading to their website.
(Original air date June 11, 2020)
