Had the pleasure of attending the IVCC course this week. This course, which is led by one of our partner consultants Dr Iqbal Malik, focuses on both the surgical and percutaneous treatment of aortic and mitral valve disease.
Yesterday was an excellent insight into the work that interventional cardiologists are doing percutaneously to treat valve disease. The term percutaneous describes the techniques that typically are guided over catheters inserted into the femoral artery in the groin. Live cases were presenting including some great examples of tackling problems that arise during such procedures. The main techniques which are gathering pace in this area is the TAVI procedure (trans-catheter aortic valve implantation) you can see and example of this technique here
https://youtu.be/Qg9Kvq-nTN4
and the Mitral-clip technique which you can see here.
Today’s session focuses on the surgical alternatives to the percutaneous approach and the advances in these more traditional techniques. This started with a lecture by Mr Ottavio Alfieri who pointed out that surgical techniques need to become less invasive therefore reducing the impact and risks on the patient.