New treatments bring new expectations. Robotic heart surgery, stem cell therapies, minimally invasive operations are not always best for everyone. Leading heart surgeon and educator explains. Dr. Marc Pelletier, is there anything else you'd like to add to our conversation? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. You are at the forefront of cardiac surgery. You are training cardiac surgery residents. You are very motivated and highly driven person and professional. Maybe one of the things is this. Dr. Marc Pelletier, MD. You made a very astute comment when we started talking about technology. It's something I've been thinking about since you said it. Because you are absolutely correct that we are a technology-driven world now. The advances of technology are great. What we're able to do in heart surgery is remarkable. Sometimes patients think that because the technology is there, automatically they're going to be a candidate for that technology. Dr. Marc Pelletier, MD. The challenges for us sometimes is trying to assess those patients correctly. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. We have to establish some realistic expectations in patients. One example would be this. Patients come in and they say. "Can you do my surgery robotically?" Sometimes the answer is “Yes". But the majority of the time the answer is that. ”No, and you're not a good candidate for robotic surgery”. Dr. Marc Pelletier, MD. Because of these reasons and those reasons. The interface of technology and a physician is so important. Because our job as a physician is really to help guide a patient through a really stressful time in their lives. Sometimes technology will play a role in that. Sometimes technology will play a lesser role. So we have to acknowledge that not all patients are good candidates for a robotic heart surgery. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. But the technology in cardiac surgery is absolutely remarkable. Dr. Marc Pelletier, MD. New heart treatment technology is coming from some companies. This cardiac surgery technology helps us as physicians to do what we are trying to do. We talked about TAVR / TAVI. It did not exist at all 15 years ago. Now in the United States over half of all aortic valve replacements are going to be done with TAVI. That is remarkable. It is possible that the same technology breakthrough is going to happen with the mitral valve treatment. Mitral valve insufficiency or mitral valve stenosis is even a bigger problem than the aortic valve. There are 20 to 30 companies now investing billions of dollars into coming up with new mitral valves. They work on new devices to change the mitral valve. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Where we are going in surgery is very clear. There will be less invasive surgery. There will be less pain for patients. There will be more comfort for the patient. Dr. Marc Pelletier, MD. There will be a quicker recovery after cardiac surgery.The technology will allow us to do all that. It will be equally as safe, as effective, as durable as open heart surgery. That will be a really big benefit to our patients with heart problems. I am thrilled to be part of the technological revolution in cardiac surgery. It is an exciting time to be part of cardiac surgery. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Hopefully we will see more advances like that in the future. Dr. Pelletier, thank you very much for this conversation! It will be very interesting to patients around the world. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. We hope to come back to you with more questions in the future. Thank you very much! Thank you, Anton, thank you very much!
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