Guest guest Posted September 4, 2003 Report Share Posted September 4, 2003 Hi, 1) What is their success rate? 2) What is their complications rate? Every doctor makes a mistake from time to time. You need to know how often that occurs with your doctor. With regard to this procedure, when was the last time he made a mistake, what's his/her overall percentage, etc. 3) What kind of patients does your doctor typically work on. Chronic fibbers, lone a-fibbers, people who have been dealing with this for years, newly diagnosed, a good mix? If you are more chronic, you may not want to go with a doctor who has only worked on lone a-fibbers. Does this make sense? You may also want to find out success and complication rates for the patients (in the particular categories) he/she has worked on. 4) When a complication does arise, what will they do? Take a quick look at things and if nothing apparent seems wrong just press forward, or do they just call it a day and try again later? For me, I would prefer that if they felt something went wrong to just stop and do this another day. 5) Follow-up care. Immediately post-op, and down the road. That's all that comes to mind right now. Hope it helps. Bruce > I contacted Greg Feld's office in UCSD University California San > Diego. > They scheduled me for a consultation on the 26 of this month. > > Can you give me some questions to ask? > > Jim in California Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 4, 2003 Report Share Posted September 4, 2003 > I contacted Greg Feld's office in UCSD University California San > Diego. > They scheduled me for a consultation on the 26 of this month. > > Can you give me some questions to ask? > > Jim in California Jimbo: In addition to all Bruces recommendations, you might ask if they use lasso mapping catheters, and have ever damaged a mitral valve and how they ensure that the catheter doesn't enter the left ventricle and get tangled in the mitral valve apparatus. That's probably the most catastrophic complication. It happened to me. Pam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 6, 2003 Report Share Posted September 6, 2003 Jim, First, have you viewed the A Fib foundations PVA article. It's worth looking at to give you some background on the proceedure. www.affacts.org click on Dr. Keane's article and then click on PVI proceedure. Some general questions would be. 1. Will I need a cardio MRI before the proceedure? 2. Who will do the proceedure and who will assist? 3. Will I be knocked out or awake? 4. Will it be a full PVA, right and left sides and flutter(if detected)or right side only? 5. Groin entry or neck entry? 6. Recovery time in hospital and home. When can I return to work and excersise etc. 7. Post PVA drug therapy. What will it be? 8. Post PVA follow up Dr. visits? 9. Your success rate with people who have my variety of A Fib? 10. What do you call success. Full elimination of AF? 80% 60% 40% etc. elimination of AF? 11. How long will the proceedure be? 2 hrs? 6 hrs? 8 hrs? 12. Here's a big one. Stenosis. What is your percent of patients developing stenosis? He should have a number. If he doesn't look elsewhere. 13. Post precedure. Any more cardio MRI's or TEE's? 14. Second PVA touch up proceedures. How often does he do them? I can go on and on. But I think these will cover most things. Good luck Jim. Rich O Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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