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The impact of the results from low-risk TAVR trials will be felt for many years. It will be felt by a wide group - surgeons, cardiologists, hospital systems, insurance companies, and most importantly patients.

While it’s been around for years, TAVR was initially used as a last-chance option for people with highly severe aortic disease who wouldn’t be healthy enough to endure the intensity of a traditional surgery

Earlier this month the New York Times explored an important question: “When is the surgeon too old to operate?” Columbia's heart surgeons give us their insight.

Heart surgery has come a long way from when Dr. F. John Lewis performed one of the first open heart surgeries on a 5-year-old girl in 1952 to correct a birth defect that left a hole in the wall of the upper chamber in her heart.

Teaching patients to advocate for their own heart health via awareness campaigns is starting to make an impact, but there is much more work to be done on the side of health care professionals.

Thanks in large part to the leadership of Columbia’s Cardiac Transplantation and Mechanical Circulatory Support Programs, a new left ventricular assist device, the Heartmate 3™ LVAD is now FDA approved.

On March 29, 2017 NYP/Columbia celebrated 60 years of innovation in open-heart surgery with a gathering of patients, doctors, surgeons, nurses, and an official proclamation from the New York State Assembly and Manhattan Borough President, Gale Brewer.

"In the past ten years, we have been emphasizing prevention for many forms of heart disease,” says Dr. Edward Schuster, assistant clinical professor of Cardiology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia. "With a healthy diet, no smoking and proper medication, we have cut the death rate from coronary events by 50 percent. In Fairfield County, where Columbia has an affiliate hospital, this figure has dropped by an impressive 80 percent, indicating that lifestyle changes can have a big effect."

One of the most advanced and comprehensive in the world

NYP/Columbia is one of the leading centers in the world for patients with end-stage heart disease, and one of the first to allow those with end-stage heart failure to benefit from Heartmate 3. This new left ventricle assist device (LVAD) takes over the pumping action of the heart, moving oxygen-rich blood throughout the body.