Sukru Akyuz

Dr. Sukru Akyuz worked for 17 years at Siyami Ersek Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Training and Research Hospital, Turkey's largest heart hospital, and has performed thousands of interventional procedures. However, his main professional interest is non-surgical treatment of heart diseases with interventional methods which generally offer alternative solutions to open-heart surgery. These are as follows:

• Coronary angiography: Diagnostic imaging of the heart vessels.
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• Basic or complex stenting: A procedure to open a narrowed or blocked coronary artery. “Complex” stands for stenting for bifurcation, severe calcification, left main stem -LMCA- or chronic total occlusion -CTO- procedures by antegrade or retrograde ways (An alternative to heart bypass surgery).
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• TAVR (Transcatheter aortic valve replacement): Aortic valve replacement without opening the chest or heart (An alternative to surgical aortic valve replacement). The synonym is TAVI (Transcatheter aortic valve implantation).
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• PBMV (Percutaneous balloon mitral valvotomy): A procedure that widens the narrowed mitral valve by a balloon so that blood flows more easily through the heart (An alternative to mitral valve surgery). The synonym is PMC (Percutaneous mitral commissurotomy).
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• MitraClipTM: A clipping procedure through the leg to treat a leaking mitral valve (In patients judged too high-risk for mitral valve surgery).
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• Left atrial appendage (LAA) closure: A one-time procedure closing off the blind pouch at the top left chamber of the heart (In patients with a high risk of thromboembolic stroke who do not tolerate anticoagulation therapy or have bleeding risks associated with use of that therapy).
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• ASD closure: A minimally-invasive procedure performed to repair a congenital hole between two chambers of the heart (An alternative to fix it with open-heart surgery).
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• PFO closure: A minimally-invasive procedure performed to repair an opening between two chambers of the heart in patients with unexplained stroke (An alternative to fix it with open-heart surgery).
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• PDA closure: A minimally-invasive procedure performed to repair a congenital tunnel between two large vessels in the chest (An alternative to fix it with open-heart surgery).
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• Alcohol septal ablation: A procedure performed to facilitate blood being ejected from the heart in patients with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (An alternative to open-heart surgery, i.e., septal myectomy).
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• Carotid artery stenting: A procedure to open a narrowed carotid artery (An alternative to surgery, i.e., carotid endarterectomy).
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• Stenting for coarctation of aorta: Repair of coarctation of aorta with stents (An alternative to aortic surgery).
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• EVAR / TEVAR [(Thoracic) endovascular aneurysm repair]: A minimally invasive procedure in which a stent covered with fabric is placed into the area of aneurysm so that blood can flow through the stent (An alternative to to aortic surgery).
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• Paravalvular leak closure: A minimally invasive procedure to seal paravalvular leak which refers to blood flowing through a channel between the structure of the implanted valve and cardiac tissue as a result of a lack of appropriate sealing (An alternative to surgical re-intervention).
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• Balloon pericardiotomy: A nonsurgical technique performed to drain excess fluid in the sac around the heart to prevent reaccumulation of fluid (An alternative to surgical pericardial window).