Heart surgery

A nonsurgical treatment, alcohol septal ablation is used to return an abnormally thick heart wall to its normal size and improve your blood flow. Using a balloon-tipped catheter, our interventional cardiologists inject a tiny amount of pure alcohol into the wall to kill the cells and shrink the area.

An atherectomy is a procedure that removes plaque from a blood vessel, making the artery wider so your blood can flow more freely. While an angioplasty with a stent is more common, you may be a good candidate for one of our advanced treatment options:

• Laser atherectomy — A procedure that involves inserting a catheter that emits a high-energy light, or laser, to vaporize blockages in the artery
• Mechanical atherectomy — A procedure where plaque is shaved or cut out

Also known as heart bypass or bypass surgery, this operation treats a blocked or narrowed coronary artery and restores blood flow to the heart. Bypass surgery uses a heart-lung bypass machine, which pumps blood to the heart while it’s stopped. If you have a complete or almost complete blockage of the artery for longer than a month, CABG surgery may be recommended.

The left atrial appendage (LAA) is a small sac in the wall of the top left chamber of the heart. If you’ve developed atrial fibrillation (AFib), the most common type of heart arrhythmia, blood can pool in this sac and cause blood clots, increasing your risk of stroke.

We offer two minimally invasive procedures to provide you with AFib treatment:

• LAA closure device — Shaped like a parachute and about the size of a quarter, we place this device using a minimally invasive procedure. The tissue grows around it and permanently seals the LAA.
• LAA suture loop — We loop a lasso-shaped suture around the base of the LAA, permanently sealing it off from your heart.

There's additional AFib ablation advanced treatment options we can perform as well, which also help to reduce your risk of stroke without using blood thinners. They include:

• Atrioventricular (AV) node ablation
• Catheter ablation
• Convergent procedure
• maze procedure
• Pulmonary vein isolation ablation

The hole in your heart may have already caused multiple strokes or transient ischemic attacks (TIA) despite your use of a blood-thinning medication. A PFO closure procedure is performed to help you better manage these symptoms. During this minimally invasive procedure, our surgeons insert a catheter through a small incision into a large vein and then move it up to your heart. Thereafter, we advance a PFO closure device through the vein and into the heart to the exact location of your defect. This permanent device straddles each side of the hole, stopping the abnormal blood flow between the two atrial chambers of your heart.

PCI, also known as an angioplasty with a stent, is a nonsurgical procedure we use to open blocked arteries and restore blood flow to your heart. During this procedure, we insert a balloon-tipped catheter into a blood vessel and guide it to the blockage, which inflates in the narrow part of the affected coronary artery. Using a coronary stent that is permanently implanted in the artery, the stent is designed to keep it from narrowing or closing again.

TAVR is a minimally invasive procedure we use to replace your damaged aortic valve. Our interventional cardiologists begin by inserting a catheter through a small incision. They guide the tube to the damaged valve, where a new valve is placed. The new valve allows your blood to flow freely again, which can relieve your symptoms and may allow you to return to prior levels of activity.

To address a mitral valve that has become narrow or leaks backward, our heart surgeons use TMVR to help you manage and prevent further heart failure or heart rhythm problems. This minimally invasive treatment, which restores normal blood flow to your heart, is done through several tiny incisions, using an implant to clip the mitral valve and help it close more completely.

Structural heart disease, a non-coronary condition that doesn’t affect your blood vessels, is often present at birth. If you’ve developed structural heart disease later in life due to aging or an infection, our specialists are here to support you.

Using several of the procedures listed above to provide treatment, our cardiac surgeons can help alleviate symptoms for multiple types of structural heart disease, including:

• Arteriovenous fistula
• Atrial septal defect (ASD)
• Paravalvular leak (PVL)
• PFO
• Pseudoaneurysms
• Ventricular septal defect (VSD)

Our surgeons offer a wide range of procedures, including:

• Aortic valve repair and replacement
• Atrial fibrillation ablation procedures
• Atrial fibrillation convergent procedure
• Atrial fibrillation surgical CryoMaze procedure
• Cardiac reoperations
• Complex aortic arch surgery
• Implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) procedure
• Lead extraction procedure
• Multiple arterial grafting
• Off-pump coronary bypass surgery
• Pacemaker insertion procedure
• Thoracic aneurysm repair
• Thoracic aortic endograft (TEVAR)
• Tricuspid valve repair and replacement
• Valve-sparing aortic root replacement