What happens during an aortic valve replacement surgery?

The notion of having your chest opened and your heart exposed is enough to give you pause, even if you need a aortic valve replacement. In this Ask the Experts video with Dr. Craig Smith, a cardiothoracic surgeon, tells what happens during surgery.

Transcript

00:00

CRAIG R. SMITH: Well, during a conventional aortic valve replacement operation, the patient is put to sleep with a tube in their windpipe,

00:08

lying on their back. [LOW-FI ELECTRONIC MUSIC]

00:20

Chest is opened usually through the center of the chest with some variations on that theme but, generally speaking, through the center of the chest,

00:26

through the sternum. The heart's exposed by pushing the halves of the sternum apart.

00:34

The heart is connected to a heart-lung machine with connections to the aorta and the venous system to return blood to and from the heart-lung machine

00:41

so that the heart can be stopped.

00:47

A clamp is put across the aorta so that blood can't get to the coronaries. The heart arrests, it stops, and it's empty.

00:54

In an empty arrested state, we open the aorta, remove the valve, pull out all the calcium

01:02

that's built up on the valve as much as possible so that we can place sutures around it, then sutures around where the valve used to be.

01:09

The sutures are put through a valve. The valve is run down the sutures in place, tied in position, and the aorta is closed.

01:19

And gradually the work of circulation is passed back to the patient from the heart-lung machine, and off we go.