NYU Langone completes first year of robotic mitral valve repair program

The Cardiothoracic Surgery Department at NYU Langone Medical Center completed its first year of offering patients endoscopic robotic mitral valve repair surgery. This procedure was introduced at the medical center in the spring of 2011 by Dr. Didier F. Loulmet, a renowned cardiothoracic surgeon who helped develop the procedure.

Unlike traditional open-heart surgery requiring a 10 to 12 inch incision in the chest, robotic endoscopic mitral valve repair only requires five pencil size holes made between the ribs on the right side of the chest to provide access to the heart. Robotic tools allow a magnified, three-dimensional view of the mitral valve and other structures, while dramatically limiting the physical impact to the patient. This results in less pain, faster recovery and fewer post-operative complications for patients.

"This less invasive procedure considerably reduces the difficulties patients often experience after traditional open heart surgery and within only months of the surgery, they can resume normal daily activities," said Didier F. Loulmet, MD, associate professor, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery.

Mitral valve repairs are the most common type of minimally invasive surgery on the heart, accounting for 85 percent of all minimally invasive cardiac surgeries performed at NYU Langone. Over 5,000 mitral valve surgeries have been performed at the medical center in the last three decades, 4,000 of those were mitral value repairs and now, nearly one third of surgical mitral valve repairs are done robotically at NYU Langone.

"Our cardiac surgeons are among the nation's leaders in treating mitral valve diseases and have pioneered minimally invasive mitral valve surgery, which has become standard for many of our surgeons," said Aubrey C. Galloway, MD, the Seymour Cohn Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery and chair, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery. "Robotic mitral valve repair represents a significant advance in cardiothoracic surgery and NYU Langone is one of the few medical centers in the nation that offers this specialized procedure."