Chinese researchers use a novel minimally invasive surgical approach to treat heart failure patients.

For heart failure patients with valve regurgitation, in the past if they could not undergo open-heart surgery, they could only rely on medication to slow disease progression. Now there is another possibility: replacing the valve using a minimally invasive approach. The related research findings were published on October 31 in the international academic journal Circulation. The study was led by the team of Professors Zhang Junjie and Chen Shaoliang from the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Nanjing First Hospital. The study shows that after patients underwent minimally invasive valve replacement, they had shorter hospital stays and higher quality of life.