Robotic & Minimally Invasive Heart Surgery: Expert Q&A

Using robotic devices, thin instruments, miniature cameras and hybrid techniques, surgeons at UChicago Medicine can repair the heart without having to make a long incision and cut through the breastbone. Dr. Husam Balkhy discusses the benefits.

Table of Contents

0:00:00​​​ Introduction
0:01:19 What procedures do you perform with the robotic arm?
0:05:17 What does robotic surgery look like?
0:07:31 Introduction to robotic surgery patient
0:08:21 What is the procedure like for a patient?
0:09:30 What is patient recovery like?
0:11:13 At what point does minimal mitral valve regurgitation become a problem?
0:12:21 How did you get started on this type of procedure?
0:14:09 What advice for somebody that's facing a procedure like our patient, David?
0:17:51 Are there restrictions to which patients can undergo robotic heart surgery?
0:23:15 Do patients experience pain afterwards?
0:25:12 Does the robotic surgery allow you to find other problems?
0:27:51 If you've had open heart surgery, can you have robotic heart surgery in the future?

[joannegingertrumppresiden]

Can there be updates on these videos? I see very little movement on surgeons using the robotic assistance procedures to repair the mitral valves. It seems that there is a lack of funding to hospitals to get the essentials to use robotic procedures and surgeons to operate. We are stuck with sternotomy as the only solution.

[WaqarAhmed-spyu]

I feel there is no existence of minimum invasive CABG available especially if multiple Arteries are involved but All the Surgeon will say oh yes we can do it and they will make you run all the tests but at the end they will say sorry we can't do the minimum invasive we will do the regular sternotomy procedure they are just a mouthpiece of the hospital and they play an advertisement for the hospital to get an attention from the patients.

[nourab]

I have a question to Dr husam balkhy ...does the robotic procedure work for removing a membrane under the aortic valve ?

[joelaliker]

Can main artery be bypassed using robotic surgery?

[nourab]

Does the robatic heart surgery work to change aortic valve with severe regretion?

[kwchew]

What is the risk of bleeding or massive bleeding during this robotic surgery? Like ruptured of blood vessels during robotic procedure. Any statistic or data for this would be very appreciated !