Heart Surgery


10 Tips To Inoperable Heart Disease

10 Tips For Inoperable Heart Disease A diagnosis of inoperable heart disease can be discouraging. A heart condition may be difficult to live with. Minimally invasive bloodless heart surgery may offer options that may not be possible with traditional methods. The treatment options available depend upon several conditions, including your physical health and the scope of experience of the doctors dealing with your case. Dr. Ciuffo is dedicated to finding the solutions that work best for everyone’s individual health journey. By helping you understand inoperable heart disease, you can move forward toward helpful changes. The first step is understanding that your journey will look different from other patients. Get started today to see how we can help you! Inoperable Heart Disease Each patient’s case is decided individually. There are steps you’ll need to take when facing a diagnosis of inoperable heart disease. It’s important not to panic or lose hope. Even if your case isn’t a good candidate for surgical options, many treatments can extend and improve the quality of your life.  Ask questions. Request that the medical doctor in charge of your case and your surgeon explain exactly why your case is considered “inoperable.” Be sure to write down the details of their answers.  Obtain copies of all of your diagnostic records, including imaging- CAT scans, catheterizations, echocardiograms, EKGs, and other reports.  Gather copies of all the reports pertinent to your case, including blood tests and other results. Each of these steps can help you get more information about what is happening. Sometimes answers are more helpful than having to live wondering what will happen next. You should...
Advantage of Minimally Invasive Heart Surgery

Advantage of Minimally Invasive Heart Surgery

3 Advantages of Minimally Invasive Heart Surgery New technologies are emerging all the time. As open heart surgery treatments advance, there are new options and choices facing patients. As you move toward open heart surgery as a treatment, consider all your options and weigh the benefits and risks with your medical team to decide the best course of action. With a doctor you can trust, like Dr. Ciuffo, you can start to understand the procedures more than before and not worry about making the right decision. Our team is here for you every step of the process.   Open Heart Surgery It used to be that open heart surgery was a last-resort risk. The recovery time was slow, and the procedure often left behind large scars which took a long time to heal. To reach the heart, traditional open heart surgery involves breaking through the ribcage, usually through the sternum itself. This left the patient with a long, hard, and often painful recovery. New techniques and technologies allow for a much less invasive option for most patients. Sternotomy Traditionally, open heart surgery, or sternotomy, meant entering the chest through a large incision, breaking the sternum to reach the heart, and performing the surgery. The potential problems included inflammation, swelling, pain, a longer recovery, and infection. The shock to the heart and the blood loss made it more difficult for patients to recover fully and heal efficiently. Fortunately, minimally invasive heart surgery options are now available. Minimally Invasive Heart Surgery With minimally invasive heart surgery, there is a much smaller incision, which can often be hidden beneath the fold of a...

Heart Valve Replacement Survival Rate

Having invasive surgery for a heart valve replacement is sometimes necessary, but it doesn’t have to be. Open heart surgery is a major operation and requires a hospital stay of at least a week, with part of that in the intensive care unit in most cases. Depending on your age, general health, and how severely damaged or faulty your heart valves are, invasive surgery may not be necessary. Although studies have shown that the heart valve replacement surgery survival rate is very high, there are other less invasive treatments for valve repair or replacement, such as minimally invasive aortic valve replacement or minimally invasive mitral valve repair. Minimally Invasive Aortic Valve Replacement Aortic Stenosis (AS) is a heart disease affecting the aortic valve. This valve is responsible for pumping oxygenated blood to all parts of the body. With AS, the aortic valve is too narrow, causing a very high internal pressure due to the heart working extra hard to pump blood through it. This pressure triggers the cardiac muscle to thicken to increase its strength, and eventually tires out and results in a life-threatening condition. The majority of patients with AS, with or without symptoms present, need to have minimally invasive aortic valve replacement to replace the defective valve with a new mechanical or biological heart valve prosthesis. If there has been a diagnosis of severe AS, even if symptoms are not present, patients should be evaluated as soon as possible for surgical intervention. Clinical evidence shows that delaying surgery is dangerous. Severe symptomatic aortic valve stenosis is a lethal condition that requires effective aortic valve replacement. No other...
Emotional Changes After Open Heart Surgery

Emotional Changes After Open Heart Surgery

Open heart surgery is a big decision to make and the most common type of surgery performed on adults. During the surgery, a healthy vein or artery is attached to a blocked coronary artery. This allows the grafted artery to bypass the blocked artery and bring fresh blood to the heart. Before one undergoes heart surgery they will start preparing, who will pick up their medicine when recovering, who will handle household responsibilities, and who will pick up their slack at work. One thing people might not prepare for is emotional changes after open heart surgery and how to stay positive during the recovery season. Cardiac Depression After Open Heart Surgery Up to 25% of patients experience cardiac depression after surgery. Factors that can increase the risk of depression include reactions to anesthesia, effects of antibiotics, pain and discomfort while recovering, reactions to certain pain relievers, emotional stress resulting from the surgery, or concerns about the impact on the quality of life. We think of our mood as based on how we feel. But having a positive and uplifting outlook during recovery can improve your physical healing process. Emotional changes after heart surgery will occur but you have the power to captivate your thoughts into being positive and potentially help your recovery process. There are some strategies that can improve your odds of feeling good during recovery.  Reduce Emotional Changes After Open Heart Surgery Knowing what to expect before, during, and after open heart surgery can help reduce depression symptoms and emotional changes after open heart surgery. This shows the importance of asking your provider any and all questions...

Heart Surgery for the Elderly

One of the scariest experiences a person can go through is being told that they have a serious heart issue that needs to be addressed with surgery. The risks for elderly heart surgery can be great, and not long ago, there wasn’t a wide variety of options available when it came to different procedures and techniques. When faced with such news, we begin to wonder if we may be facing the end of our lives. We may worry that, even with a successful procedure, the quality of our lives might still drop. But now, thanks to surgeons like Dr. Giovanni Ciuffo and his team of experts, there are minimally invasive, bloodless heart surgery alternatives to the conventional methods. How It All Began Dr. Ciuffo has dedicated his entire medical career to studying and developing new and precise techniques to minimize the risks, pain, recovery time, and intrusiveness of heart and cardiovascular procedures. He first began to employ his bloodless heart surgery techniques in the 90s, as a means of providing alternative options to the Jehovah Witness communities of Pittsburgh, and then later in New York. The results of his hard work and time invested are clear in the numerous medical studies and reviews which have confirmed the effectiveness of his bloodless heart surgery methods, as well as the countless patient testimonials praising his efforts and thanking him for saving their lives. What the Elderly Can Expect Before the Procedure Before any medical procedure such as this can be performed, a consultation followed by a thorough examination must take place first. This is necessary not only to make sure the...

Do You Have to Diet Before or After Heart Surgery?

Heart surgery is one of the most critical types of operations that can be done on the human body, and it is usually only pursued if other, less aggressive treatments have been exhausted. To provide the optimum conditions for a successful procedure, preoperative and postoperative guidelines must be observed. One of those guidelines pertains to the patient’s diet. What to Eat Leading up to Surgery? Simply put, one of the biggest problems complicating heart surgery is obesity. The more overweight a patient is, the more difficult the recovery will be. Diets designed to help prepare a person for heart surgery, then, are often focused on losing weight. Time is of the essence, and the more time before surgery the patient has to focus on this goal, the better. If the patient has at least two weeks before heart surgery, they might benefit from emphasizing fruits, vegetables, low-fat protein, whole grains, and low sodium in their diet to help lose weight and lower blood pressure as much as possible. The total number of calories per day, on average, to consume pre-heart surgery is fairly low, at 1,200 to 1,800. Diet recommendations include more servings of fruits and vegetables than whole grains, proteins, or healthy fats. Restrictions are suggested for sweets, alcohol, and artificial sweeteners. What to Eat After Surgery? As with the pre-surgery diet, what to eat after surgery often leads to a leaner, heart-healthy diet. Recommended is a diet with extra omega 3 fatty acids, folate, vitamin K, magnesium, and unsaturated fats. On the other hand, it is not recommended that saturated and trans fats, high sodium foods, processed...