Complete heart block following valve surgery: Violation of the 'primum non nocere' maxim or a minor secondary event?

摘要

Demographic changes, improvements in cardiovascular care, and advances in surgical techniques have led to a steady increase in annual valve surgery volume with over 67,000 such procedures performed in the United States in 2012. The development of improved surgical and novel percutaneous techniques in conjunction with the publication of guidelines, which support earlier intervention in select patients with valvular pathology, suggest that the volume of open and percutaneous valvular interventions will continue to increase.