Cardiac (Heart) Surgery

If your cardiologist, cardiac specialist or heart care team recommends surgery as a
treatment option for your specific condition, you can take advantage of the highly skilled
and experienced cardiac surgeons in the Cardiovascular Institute program at OU Health in
Oklahoma City.

Expert Care for Complex Cardiac Conditions

Rely on the expert cardiac surgeons in the emerging aortic center at OU Health to treat all
types of structural or functional heart conditions and heart-related vascular conditions, as
well as the full spectrum of aortic problems (aortopathies). You also can turn to OU Health
cardiac surgeons for revision and repair of even the most complicated heart, valve, aortic
and vascular issues such as:

• Adult congenital heart disease, including tetralogy of Fallot, hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) and more
• Aortic disease (thoracic), aortic branching, thoracic aortic vascular problems
• Aortic dissection (tear), both current and previous events
• Aortic problems related to Marfan syndrome, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Loeys-Dietz syndrome
• Aortic valve disease (stenosis/narrowing), aortic valve regurgitation (leaking), dilated (expanded) aorta
• Arrhythmias – Abnormal heart rhythms
• Ascending aortic aneurysm - Bulges in or enlargement of aorta
• Cardiac trauma
• Coronary artery disease
• Heart murmur – Extra noise during heartbeat from uneven blood flow
• Tumors of the heart
• Valvular heart (heart valve) disease

Cardiac Surgery Treatments

At OU Health, you and your heart care team may choose from a wide range of traditional
open cardiac procedures and complex cardiac surgical treatments, including:

• Aortic dissection repair, debranching of aortic arch
• Complex aortic aneurysm repair
• Coronary bypass surgery or multivessel bypass
• Heart valve repair and replacement
• Surgical ablation for arrhythmias
• Surgical aortic valve repair or replacement (SAVR) for aortic stenosis, aortic regurgitation, dilated aorta
• Surgical mitral valve repair or replacement for mitral valve regurgitation and more
• Surgical revision or repair of previous standard and complex procedures for heart and heart-related conditions
• Valvular bypass with closure of left atrial appendage (LAA)

Advanced Heart / Heart Valve Program

To care for a heart murmur or heart valve disease, choose the coordinated care available
through the OU Health Advanced Heart program that offers an echo-alert protocol to
identify moderate to severe conditions. You’ll collaborate in a comprehensive evaluation
with a multidisciplinary team of cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons, echo cardiologists and nurses specializing in heart valve care. You benefit from our substantial knowledge of
complicated heart valve situations, which may involve surgical or catheter-based care.

Innovations from Research & Clinical trials

Also at OU Health, you gain access to many advanced surgical techniques, including interventional (catheter-based) and other minimally invasive surgery procedures, for treating all types of heart conditions. You benefit from these innovations because your OU Health cardiac surgeons regularly engage in ongoing cardiovascular research or clinical trials so they can bring their findings to your care.

Heart Attack Symptoms - Get to know the American Heart Association’s warning signs of heart attack. For immediate help, call 911.

Comprehensive Heart Surgery at OU Health

When you choose OU Health for cardiac surgery, you’ll participate in a thorough review of your entire health history, your current health situation and all parts of pre-surgery decision making. This ensures that you, your loved ones, and your care team members fully understand your specific heart-related concern and its impact on every system in your body.

You and your OU Health cardiac surgery team also gather information about all aspects of your health—often helping connect you with related OU Health services for tests, imaging studies, evaluations, pre-operative procedures and more. Then, you and your team determine how to address each item before proceeding with surgery.

After surgery, you benefit from ongoing follow-up care that involves your OU Health cardiac surgeons, as well as members of our critical care team, cardiologists and many other healthcare specialists. Everyone works together to help you make a smooth transition as you return to your primary care physician or cardiologist for continuing care.

Related OU Health Services

Explore more OU Health services for heart care and vascular medicine, including:

• Adult congenital heart program
• Interventional and structural cardiology
• Limb preservation
• Vascular medicine
• Vascular surgery
• Wound healing

Help Keep Your Heart Healthy

Learn how to exercise for heart health and find out more about eating heart-healthy foods.

Your Cardiac Surgery Team

While coronary artery bypass surgery tops the list of common cardiac surgery procedures across the nation, around the world and here in Oklahoma, you’ll also find that OU Health board-certified and fellowship-trained cardiac surgeons spend more than half their time performing complex heart-related surgeries not available anywhere else.

Your cardiac surgeons work as a team with other OU Health cardiac physicians, and with surgeons in vascular and interventional (minimally invasive) specialties, to address all types of heart-related issues, including complex aortic conditions. These health concerns often require multiple procedures staged in sequence, an approach that helps deliver the best possible outcome for a particular situation.

Whether you need complicated multi-valve operations, aortic procedures, second—or even third—revisions of previous heart and vascular surgeries, your OU Health cardiac surgery team offers the expertise and skill to meet your challenge with improved outcomes, as recognized nationally by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS). In addition to military veterans who receive care at the VA Hospital in Oklahoma City, you and your friends and neighbors across the region achieve better results by choosing OU Health for top-quality cardiac surgery that delivers positive outcomes.