WVU Heart and Vascular Institute hosts international symposium on robotic aortic valve surgery

News Release
November 26, 2024

The WVU Heart and Vascular Institute (HVI) and the WVU Robotic Cardiac Surgery Program hosted a first-of-its-kind International Symposium on Robotic Aortic Valve Replacement (RAVR) on November 14 and 15. The landmark, two-day event brought together over 80 experts from 16 U.S. states and 11 countries, representing 41 prominent academic medical centers.

The symposium highlighted groundbreaking advancements in robotic cardiac surgery, focusing on concomitant robotic, structural cardiac valve, and arrhythmia procedures, and provided a platform to explore the future of robotic cardiac surgery. It also featured discussions on RAVR as a viable, sustainable, and reproducible alternative to both transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) and traditional surgical aortic valve replacement for many patient population groups.

Attendees at the event in Morgantown hailed from centers such as Baylor Scott and White Health, Cleveland Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital, Mayo Clinic, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Stanford Medical Center, the University of Barcelona, the University of Texas and many others.

Leaders in robotic cardiac surgery joined conference director Vinay Badhwar, M.D., executive chair of the WVU Heart and Vascular Institute and chair of the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, to learn new advancements in the field of cardiac robotics.

Attendees experienced hands-on demonstrations showing how RAVR is innovating cardiothoracic patient care and how current peer-reviewed research is advancing the field and extending lives perhaps over transcatheter alternatives. Developed by Dr. Badhwar and his team at WVU Medicine in 2020, RAVR has become a transformative option embraced by centers across the globe.

“The symposium marked the first of many opportunities for robotic surgeons and our cardiology colleagues to share ideas and learn how RAVR is helping further the practice of new and innovative surgical treatments,” Badhwar said. “Our goal of this new and reproducible approach may serve as an evolving platform to perform several existing concomitant cardiac operations, done robotically.”

The symposium included:

Live demonstration of RAVR procedures and “live-in-a-box” cases, including double valve surgery, triple valve surgery, RAVR with aortic root enlargement, septal myectomy and surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation.
A keynote address on an interventional cardiologist’s perspective of TAVR and RAVR by Ramesh Daggubati, M.D., vice-chair of Cardiology at HVI and System chief of Structural Cardiology at WVU Medicine.
A special lecture focused on robotic heart transplantation using the same lateral right platform, presented by Feras Khaliel, M.D., Ph.D., head of Cardiac Surgery and director of the Robotics and Minimally Invasive Surgery Program at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Dr. Khaliel is the first surgeon in the world to perform a robotic heart transplant.

“The breakthrough work presented at this conference is at the vanguard of robotic cardiac surgeries,” Khaliel said. “The training and insights that participants were able to take away from Dr. Badhwar and other thought leaders highlight the importance of integrating RAVR into patient care.”

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, with aortic valve disease affecting nearly 2 million patients each year — some of whom suffer from severe or critical conditions. Aortic valve replacement is designed to enhance these patients’ outcomes, improving and extending the lives of thousands of Americans affected by cardiological diseases.

For more information on the event, visit WVUMedicine.org/Info/RAVR. For more information on the WVU Heart and Vascular Institute, visit WVUMedicine.org/Heart.