Preface

In 1952, Charles Hufnagel implanted the first artificial valve in a 30-year-old woman with severe aortic valve regurgitation. This was done in an era when open heart surgery and valve surgery did not exist, albeit there were primitive attempts to treat heart diseases at that time. Valve surgery has come a long way since then and the progress being made in treating different valve pathology today is beyond imagination.

This book highlights some of the major milestones in valve surgery. It begins with a brief introductory chapter that gives an overview of the major milestones in valve surgery, such as the increased focus on valve repair rather than replacement and the advent of minimally invasive or minimal access approaches to valve surgery. It also discusses major advances in transcatheter therapy, which is an integral part of valve disease management and can be used in all heart valves either as a primary or repeat intervention.

Chapter 2 reviews minimally invasive approaches to aortic valve disease and Chapter 3 discusses the different surgical options for pulmonary valve pathology. The tricuspid valve is no longer considered the "forgotten valve" and surgeons have changed their approach and moved towards more aggressive repair strategies for the tricuspid valve, especially when data continues to show increased morbidity and mortality for patients with tricuspid valve regurgitation on long-term follow-up. This is highlighted in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 describes the conduction system and its risk of involvement when performing different types of procedures on different heart valves. Finally, Chapter 6 examines the role of concomitant valve surgery during orthotopic heart transplantation. This is a unique situation with a unique solution to avoid repeat interventions after heart transplantation to optimize the hemodynamics of the new heart.

I am very grateful to all the contributing authors for their excellent chapters, as well as the editorial staff at IntechOpen. I also would like to thank my co-editor Dr. Jeffrey Shuhaiber for his valuable assistance in editing this book.

> **Sameh M. Said, MBBCh, MD, FACC, FACS** Chief, Division of Pediatric and Adult Congenital Cardiac Surgery, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital, Westchester Medical Center, Valhalla, New York, USA

> > **Jeffrey Shuhaiber, BSc MD MBA**

Cardiovascular Surgeon, Geisinger Heart Institute, Wilkes Barre, PA, USA

Section 1 Introduction

### **Chapter 1**
