Cardiovascular Surgery is the branch of surgery that deals with prevention, study and treatment of heart, pericardial and large vessel diseases. In other words:

• Congenital and acquired heart, pericardial and large vessel disorders
• Thoracic aortic artery pathology
• Organ transplantation
• Procedures and techniques necessary to do its work: perfusion, circulatory assistance, blood storage, etc.
• Pre and post-operative study, preparation and management of patients in its scope of action
• Application of the speciality's techniques within the context of other medical specialities

This scope of action may be modified in the future as the development of new techniques and treatment methods for the circulatory system justifies it. The range of services is, therefore, dynamic and adaptable to new technologies.

The Germans Trias Service

The Cardiac Surgery Service of the Germans Trias Hospital was created in the year 2000, and the first surgery was performed in November. Since then, between 450 and 600 surgeries are done every year, something that has varied according to the area of reference. Currently, the Service covers an area of over one-and-a-half million people in the Northern Barcelones, Maresme and Gironian districts (the Germans Trias specialists also work at the Josep Trueta Hospital in Girona), which means over six hundred major surgeries every year. The Service provides the full range of adult patient services, except heart transplant.

In 2009, it became certified to teach, and every year it welcomes a new resident. Resident training is all done in the Service, except for rotations in the Thoracic Surgery and Vascular Surgery services at the Germans Trias Hospital and Congenital Cardiac Surgery at the Vall d’Hebron Hospital.

To carry out its work, the Service has:

• Consultation
• Two operating theatres working morning and afternoon and available 24 hours in case of Emergency
• The operating theatre at the Trueta Hospital where two surgeries are done every week
• The Cardiac Post-surgical Care Unit
• The hospitalization rooms on the 11th. floor
• Work spaces

In-house database

The service has its own daily updated database, monthly and yearly audited, and subject to random external auditing, which makes it possibl to have exhaustive, reliable and useful data. This encourages research and continuous improvement, as well as quality and excellence in the area of healthcare.

Clinical results

Every year, the Germans Trias Hospital Cardiac Surgery Service reports its clinical results to the Spanish Association of Thoracic Surgery and the European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery.

Click here to see the Service's clinical results.

Aortic heart valve repair (plastia or annuloplastia) is currently considered the choice treatment for mitral valve insufficiency when valvular anatomy is favourable, especially in degenerative and ischemic pathologies, with hospital mortality below 1% and a survival rate of 90 and 80% after 5 and 10 years, respectively. Most patients do not need reoperation and have a residual mitral regurgitation.

With sutureless prosthesis (Perceval®)

The Germans Trias Cardiac Service is a benchmark in aortic valve replacement with sutureless prosthesis:in Spain, it is the service that has done the most implants of this kind, with excellent results. These prostheses are designed to work better and encourage minimally invasive surgery, so they can be an option for aortic valve replacement in high risk surgical patients.

This kind of prosthesis can be implanted by means of conventional esternotomy or small incisions (miniesternotomy). Implantation is sutureless, which has many advantages in surgeries requiring shorter extracorporeal procedures and in patients with combined procedures, for example, procedures on coronary arteries or the mitral valve.

Without extracorporeal circulation, transaortic pathway

In high-risk patients for whom extracorporeal circulation may be contraindicated or undesirable, implanting a valve by introducing a catheter is a possibility that must be taken into account. The catheter is introduced by means of a small esternal or paraesternal incision to get direct access from the aortic artery.

The Cardiac Surgery Service has a document available with extensive information for all patients who have to have surgery. You can download it from this link.

The Cardiac Surgery Service collaborates with the Cardiology Service in the study of tissue regeneration in myocardial infarction with epicardial fat in the clinical trial Pericardial Adipose pedicle (adiflap) transposition.

It also participates in the Spanish multicentric PLIAR study (Perceval less invasive aortic replacement)  on implantation of the Sorin PERCEVAL® prosthesis. 

In addition, it supervises the doctoral thesis Fast-Track extubation in elderly patients undergoing aortic valve surgery with or without bypass grafting and has co-supervised the thesis Endotoxemia analysis in the postoperative period following cardiac surgery, presented in 2015.

The Service collaborates with national and international registries:

• Spanish Register of Valve Repair, reporting the service's annual surgical data to the Spanish and European Associations for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (SECTCV and EACTS)
• Sutureless bioprosthetic aortic valve replacement in high-risk patients: PAVAROTTI Register

Since 2010, it has published a dozen relevant scientific articles in its field.

It is also involved in the FIS project, Reduction of cute renal failure after cardiac surgery by using an high absorption membrane during extracorporeal circulation. Randomized clinical trial.The project is led by the Bellvitge Hospital.

Undergraduate teaching

The Germans Trias Cardiac Surgery Service participates in the undergraduate programme of the UAB School of Medicine in the following areas:

• General aspects of Cardiac Surgery
• Coronary Surgery
• Valve Surgery
• Cardiac Transplantation

Graduate Teaching

The service welcomes a new resident every year. It also advises residents in other services: Cardiology, Angiology and Vascular Surgery and Thoracic Surgery.

In addition, it participates in postgraduate Nursing courses and the annual postgraduate Cardiac Surgery course Review and update of cardiovascular surgery .

See the Teaching Guide.