The Italian Society of
Cardiology (ISC) on Monday announced the launch of its "One
Valve One Life" program to improve care standards for those with
heart valve problems and facilitate access to alternative
therapies to open-heart surgery for high-risk patients, in a
country that it said has more than one million people who suffer
from heart valve problems.
Of those patients, about 300,000 cannot undergo heart
surgery because the risk of operating would be too high.
"In many cases these patients could instead undergo new
minimally invasive procedures that have been shown to be safe
and generally well-tolerated even in patients with critical
clinical conditions," said Francesco Romeo, ISC president.
Valve illnesses represent a new cardiovascular "epidemic"
in both economic and public health terms, affecting 12% of those
over 75 years old.
In Italy an estimated 28,000 heart surgery or therapy
interventions are linked to heart valve problems each year with
over 200,000 hospital stays, about four per every 1,000
residents.
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