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Oak Brook man second in U.S. to undergo heart procedure

Carol Kurinsky expected her 73-year-old husband to be groggy and in pain the morning after his heart surgery.

At 6 a.m., she called the hospital to check on his condition. Carol was caught by surprise when he got on the phone and told her he was "fine."

"Oh my God, I don't believe this," she thought.

Married 46 years, the Oak Brook couple is relieved after doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital successfully replaced Robert Kurinsky's aortic valve last month in a groundbreaking procedure that was performed for only the second time in the United States.

They also are relieved that his recovery beat their expectations. Doctors credit advances in technology that translate into shorter hospital stays for patients with serious conditions that worsen with time.

"We're in the middle of kind of a revolution of how we treat heart valve diseases," said Dr. Patrick McCarthy, Northwestern's chief of cardiac surgery.

The 'size of a dime'

On a 35-day cruise around Asia about four years ago, Robert Kurinsky became the passenger who wanted to hole up in his room.

The retired college professor was so tired he couldn't even bring himself to the dining room.

He met with the ship's doctor, who told him he had congestive heart failure - and to get off the cruise.

"That's what struck me, 'Oh my God, and here we are in the middle of the ocean, and we have this diagnosis,'" Carol Kurinsky said.

They left the ship during a stop in Korea, took a flight home and promptly set up an appointment with a cardiologist.

An echocardiogram revealed aortic valve stenosis. The opening of his valve was shrinking, putting stress on the heart to pump blood through the aorta.

Kurinsky tried medication, and doctors monitored the valve. But this summer, surgery became a possibility.

"The opening of the valve ought to be as big around as a silver dollar, and his was down to about the size of a dime," said McCarthy, who heads Northwestern Medicine's Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute and led the team that replaced Kurinsky's valve.

The opening narrows because of calcium deposits on the valve, a not uncommon condition in patients as they age. Left untreated in severe cases, less than half of patients with aortic valve stenosis survive after two years.

"Eventually if you don't treat it, people pass out, and they don't wake up," McCarthy said. "You hear about people that are out working in their yard or playing golf or walking around Michigan Avenue, and boom, they're gone."

Faster, safer surgery

McCarthy does about 300 surgeries a year to repair and replace heart valves.

"These days, we have a lot of different options that 10 years ago I thought were sort of science fiction," he said.

About 70 percent of the hospital's procedures to replace aortic valves are now minimally invasive.

That number could grow with a new system approved by the FDA in August. On routine patients, implanting this valve through small incisions in the chest can take roughly 12 minutes.

Doctors remove the flaps of the old valve and position a cow valve. They put a balloon catheter inside and blow up the balloon, holding it for 10 seconds to expand a metal frame that holds the valve in place.

In August, a patient in Pennsylvania was the first to receive this type of valve through a system made by Edwards Lifesciences. A day later, Kurinsky became the second during an operation that also bypassed blockages in his arteries.

The system helped move his overall surgery along "much faster," McCarthy said.

"And when you already have heart failure and a weak heart ... then it's an advantage to him to make the operation as quick and efficient as possible," he said.

Less than a week after his surgery, the grandfather of six was out of the hospital and back at home, to the surprise of his wife, his "special nurse."

Kurinsky, now 74, already feels well enough already to start making plans to visit his son, daughter-in-law and grandson in Asia in the "near future."

"I'm coming to the end of life to a great extent, but younger people that can benefit from this - that to me is just wonderful," he said.

Procedure: Doctor does about 300 heart valve surgeries a year

Dr. Patrick McCarthy, chief of cardiac surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, led the team that replaced Kurinsky's aortic valve. "These days, we have a lot of different options that 10 years ago I thought were sort of science fiction," McCarthy said. Courtesy of Northwestern Memorial HealthCare
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