Robotic Surgery

The  Emory Heart and Vascular’s Robotic Cardiac Surgery program offers patients progressive surgery options with shorter recovery, lower complication rates and greater success when compared to conventional cardiac surgery.

• Robotic Surgery Volume: About 10% of mitral valve surgeries in the U.S. are done using robots because it takes a lot of time and effort to learn how to use the technology and build special teams. At Emory, our skilled surgeons do over 400 robotic heart surgeries each year.

• Faster Recovery and Safety: Traditional heart surgeries can take two to three months to recover from. Robotic heart surgery helps patients recover faster because it doesn't involve cutting through bones. Some patients feel back to normal as soon as two weeks after surgery.

• Better Valve Repair Success: Using robots help surgeons see the heart valves better and do more complex repairs, leading to a success repair rate of over 99%.

• Fewer Complications: At Emory, we've done over 6,000 robotic heart surgeries. Patients who qualify for robotic surgery have fewer strokes, less bleeding, spend less time on ventilators, have fewer infections, and need fewer blood transfusions.

• Referral Center: People from all over the U.S. come to Emory for robotic mitral valve repair and replacement surgery. We are the only place in Georgia, and the first in the southeast, to be named a Mitral Valve Repair Reference Center by The Mitral Foundation and the American Heart Association for six years in a row. This designation is based on our commitment to excellence in mitral valve repair surgery, achieving superior surgical outcomes and mitral repair rates, and advancing the treatment of degenerative mitral valve conditions.

• Treating Multiple Conditions: During one robotic heart surgery, surgeons can perform multiple procedures. These include the repair or replacement of the mitral and/or tricuspid valve, atrial fibrillation ablation, atrial septal defect/ventricular septal defect or other congenital repairs, coronary artery bypass, excision of benign tumors or closing the left atrial appendage.

• Handling Complex Cases: Patients who are hard to operate on by hand because of their size or complex heart structure are often good candidates for robotic heart surgery.

Emory's expert robotic heart surgery teams include surgeons, anesthesiologists, surgical assistants, nurses, perfusionists, and technicians. Unlike traditional approaches to heart surgery, which require opening the chest, robotic surgery is performed with small holes (<1 inch), which do not affect the ribs or disrupt the skeleton.

Robotic ports are placed in these small incisions, which allow robotic arms to be controlled by the surgeon from the console. The robotic camera provides high-definition, 3D visualization, and the robotic arms allow for 3D movements inside the heart. The surgical assistant is then able to pass sutures and other instruments through one of these small holes to enable all maneuvers necessary to repair or replace the mitral valve.

Through an additional 3-inch incision in either the groin or chest, we use the arteries and veins to place patients on the heart lung machine, which is necessary for operations inside of the heart and to protect the heart. When surgery is complete, most patients are taken off the ventilator before transfer to the intensive care unit. Typically the stay in the ICU is short and the patient is discharged two to three days after surgery and back to normal activity weeks.

In percutaneous mitral valve clip placement, a catheter (thin, flexible tube) is used to deliver a small clip into the heart via the femoral vein. Once in place, the clip is attached to the leaflets of the mitral valve to improve their function, and the catheter is removed. Since the procedure is minimally invasive, the recovery time is substantially shorter than with open-heart surgery, the traditional method for treating mitral valve leaks.