Cardiac (Heart) Surgery

If your cardiologist, cardiac specialist or heart care team recommends surgery as a
treatment option for your specific condition, you can take advantage of the highly skilled
and experienced cardiac surgeons in the Cardiovascular Institute program at OU Health in
Oklahoma City.

Expert Care for Complex Cardiac Conditions

Rely on the expert cardiac surgeons in the emerging aortic center at OU Health to treat all
types of structural or functional heart conditions and heart-related vascular conditions, as
well as the full spectrum of aortic problems (aortopathies). You also can turn to OU Health
cardiac surgeons for revision and repair of even the most complicated heart, valve, aortic
and vascular issues such as:

• Adult congenital heart disease, including tetralogy of Fallot, hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) and more
• Aortic disease (thoracic), aortic branching, thoracic aortic vascular problems
• Aortic dissection (tear), both current and previous events
• Aortopathies related to Marfan syndrome, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Loeys-Dietz syndrome
• Arrhythmias, including atrial fibrillation (Afib)
• Ascending aortic aneurysm
• Cardiac trauma
• Coronary artery disease
• Tumors of the heart
• Valvular heart (heart valve) disease

Cardiac Surgery Treatments

At OU Health, you and your heart care team may choose from a wide range of traditional
open cardiac procedures and complex cardiac surgical treatments, including:

• Aortic dissection repair, debranching of aortic arch
• Aortic valve surgery
• Arrhythmia surgery
• Cardiac valve repair and replacement
• Complex aortic aneurysm repair
• Coronary bypass surgery
• Percutaneous (minimally invasive) heart valve repair or replacement
• Stent grafts
• Surgical ablation
• Surgical revision or repair of previous standard and complex procedures
• Thoracic aortic valve replacement (TAVR)
• Valvular bypass with closure of left atrial appendage
• WATCHMAN™ implant device to reduce stroke risk for non-valvular atrial fibrillation (Afib)

Advanced Heart / Heart Valve Program

To care for a heart murmur or heart valve disease, choose the coordinated care available
through the OU Health Advanced Heart program that offers an echo-alert protocol to
identify moderate to severe conditions. You’ll collaborate in a comprehensive evaluation
with a multidisciplinary team of cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons, echo cardiologists and nurses specializing in heart valve care. You benefit from our substantial knowledge of
complicated heart valve situations, which may involve surgical or catheter-based care.

Innovative Care from Research & Clinical Trials

At OU Health, you also gain access to advanced surgical techniques and approaches,
including catheter-based and other minimally invasive surgery, for treating all types of
heart conditions. You may take advantage of these innovations because your OU Health
cardiac surgeons regularly engage in ongoing cardiovascular research and clinical trials
and bring their experience to your care.

Comprehensive Heart Surgery at OU Health

When you choose OU Health for cardiac surgery, you’ll participate in a thorough review of
your entire health history, your current health situation and all parts of pre-surgery decision
making. This ensures that you and your care team members fully understand your specific
heart-related concern and its impact on every system in your body.

Your OU Health cardiac surgery team also gathers information about the status of all
aspects of your health – often helping connect you with related OU Health services for
tests, imaging studies, evaluations, pre-operative procedures and more. Then, you and
your team determine how to address each item before proceeding with surgery.

After surgery, you benefit from ongoing follow-up care that involves your OU Health
cardiac surgeons, as well as members of our critical care team, cardiologists and many
other healthcare specialists. Everyone works together to help you make a smooth
transition back to your primary care physician or cardiologist for continuing care.

Related OU Health Services

Explore more OU Health services for heart care and vascular medicine, including:

• Adult congenital heart program
• Interventional cardiology
• Limb preservation
• Vascular medicine
• Vascular surgery

Your Cardiac Surgery Team

While coronary artery bypass surgery tops the list of common cardiac surgery procedures
across the nation, around the world and here in Oklahoma, you’ll also find that OU Health
board-certified and fellowship-trained cardiac surgeons spend more than half their time
performing complex heart-related surgeries not available anywhere else.

Your cardiac surgeons work as a team with other OU Health cardiac physicians, and with
surgeons in vascular and interventional (minimally invasive) specialties, to address all
types of heart-related issues, including complex aortic conditions. These health concerns
often require multiple procedures staged in sequence, an approach that helps produce the
best possible outcome for a particular situation.

From complicated multi-valve operations and aortic procedures to second, or even third,
revisions of previous heart and vascular surgeries, your OU Health cardiac surgery team
offers the expertise and skill to meet these challenges with improved outcomes, as
recognized nationally by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS). In addition to military
veterans receiving care at the VA Hospital in Oklahoma City, people from many states
across the region achieve better results by choosing OU Health for top-quality cardiac
surgery expertise and positive outcomes.