The Jewish General Hospital (JGH) has become the first hospital in Quebec to perform a successful mitral valve repair endoscopically using the da Vinci surgical robot. The procedure involved entering the heart cavity to treat the narrowing or leakage of the mitral valve, a valve on the left side of the heart that allows blood to flow from the left atrium to the heart’s main pumping chamber.
Unlike traditional open-heart surgery requiring a 10-to-12-inch incision in the chest, robotic mitral valve repair only requires a few pencil-sized holes made between the ribs on the right side of the chest to provide access to the heart. The da Vinci robot provided Dr. Jean-François Morin, JGH Chief of Cardiac Surgery, and his colleague Dr. Felix Ma, a surgeon in the Division of Cardiac Surgery with a three-dimensional perspective of the operating field through a special digital viewer.
Minimally invasive robotic procedures like this one provide numerous benefits to the patient, and make the experience much less traumatizing. These benefits include smaller incisions with minimal scarring, less pain, a decreased risk of infection, a shorter hospital stay, less bleeding, and a shorter recovery and quicker return to daily and professional activities.
“After years of robotic cardiac surgery training in different centres of North America and at the JGH, our efforts have been rewarded by a successful and encouraging experience,” explains Dr. Morin….
Read the full article from the Jewish General Hospital
January 22, 2013