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Community Corner

Remarkable Robotic Surgery Performed at Community Memorial Hospital

CMH surgeon becomes third in U.S. to perform multiple, minimally invasive heart procedures with robotic surgical system.

"I was continually tired. It was hard to get up in the morning."

Last summer, life was not going very well for 75 year-old Don Marlow of Germantown. He was always tired and had a very difficult time getting around. On top of that, his Parkinson’s disease made everything so much worse with the shaking, difficulty walking and coordination problems.

“He kept telling me that he did not feel well,” said his wife, Marlene. “I encouraged him to go to a doctor but that was hard.”

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Don’s condition eventually deteriorated to the point that he relented and went to see his primary care physician in August. He was in bigger trouble than he thought.

The Diagnosis

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“The general practitioner immediately called the heart doctor and made an appointment then and there to get him in,” said Marlene. “Once the cardiologist did the stress test, he said surgery was definitely indicated. We had two months to get it done.”

Don needed heart surgery to correct two serious problems. 

“Don had what we would classify as severe mitral regurgitation which means a severe leak in the mitral valve,” said Dr. Husam Balkhy, cardiothoracic surgeon at Community Memorial Hospital. “In preparation for the surgical patch of the mitral valve, he underwent a catheterization at which time it was found he had a critically tight blockage in the most important blood vessel in his heart, the left anterior descending coronary artery. The artery was about 90 percent blocked so he needed bypass surgery as well.”

A Remarkable Procedure

Because of Don’s age and his Parkinson’s disease, he didn’t want to have his chest opened for traditional open heart surgery.  Instead, Balkhy decided that both procedures could be handled at the same time by performing robotic-assisted minimally invasive heart surgery with the da Vinci Robotic Surgical system. This was only third time in the United States that these two particular heart surgery procedures were performed together this way. The robotic-assisted technique offers several key advantages.

“Normal, traditional open heart surgery requires that the surgeon take a saw and cut through the breast bone and put a spreading retractor in to spread the breast bone apart so that they can get their hands in and do the work,” Balkhy said.

Instead, minimally invasive heart surgery uses smaller incisions in side of the chest without cutting the sternum. This method involves making small, 1- to 2-inch incisions instead of the 6- to 8-inch incision needed for traditional heart surgery. The da Vinci system takes the process a bit further. It gives the surgeon improved magnification, precise robotic movements and a three-dimensional view of the surgical site.

“It’s very helpful to the patient because you’re not mutilating their body while fixing their heart,” Balkhy said. “It’s also helpful because you’ve got the ability to zoom in with your scope and camera. You’re able to get varying views of the heart and magnify and expose the structures that form the mitral valve while doing the operation.”

Balkhy has the country’s second largest number of patients that have undergone coronary bypass surgery with the da Vinci robot. He also does many other types of operations with the robot.  In 2010, 65 percent of his open heart surgeries were done without cracking the patient’s breast bone.

A Successful Result

Don’s surgeries took about six to seven hours to complete on September 30 and he recovered from them several days later.  Due to complications from his Parkinson’s, he wasn’t released from the hospital until November 4.  He got back to work at Marlow Machining in Germantown just four days later.

“I can’t believe it,” said Don. “It was amazing. I never would have made it if they would have had to do open heart surgery because of my problems with Parkinson’s disease. What they did was truly amazing.”

“I was amazed and it is awesome,” added Marlene.  “Dr. Balkhy explained that he had done bypasses this way (robotically). He had done the mitral valve repair robotically but he had never done the two of them together. It was just great not to have to think about them having to open up his chest. When Dr. Balkhy explained to Don that he could do this robotically, I could just see the smile on Don’s face.”

Don says he savors his chance to come back to work every day. Both he and Marlene remain very grateful to Balkhy and his team at Community Memorial.

“It was fantastic,” said Marlene. “They were always explaining what they were doing, what kinds of drugs they were giving him and what they wanted to achieve with them. They were always right there, not only for Don but for me.”

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