International Collaboration at F&MCW

During the first week of February 2023, members of the Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin Cardiothoracic Surgery team were honored to host a renowned multidisciplinary team comprised of cardiac surgeon Dr. Alfonso Agnino, electrophysiologist Dr. Edoardo Celentano, and anesthesiologist Dr. Matteo Parriniello. The physicians visited from the Division of Minimally Invasive and Robotic Cardiac Surgery Service of the Humanitas Gavazzeni Hospital in Bergamo, Italy (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Collaboration commences at F&MCW.

During the visit, Froedtert & MCW Cardiothoracic Surgery and Electrophysiology specialists (Drs. Mario Gasparri, Stefano Schena and James Oujiri) and staff shared their knowledge on performing a unique and cutting-edge surgery for treatment of atrial fibrillation. The visitors were able to watch the team perform a robotic epicardial ablation with left atrial appendage exclusion as part of the hybrid convergent procedure for the treatment of long-standing atrial fibrillation (Figure 2). Such procedure, in combination with endocardial catheter ablation performed by electrophysiology colleagues, allows effective treatment of atrial fibrillation in people failing medical therapy, cardioversion, isolated catheter ablation or even lack of concomitant treatment during other cardiac surgery procedures with excellent outcomes approaching those of current gold standards.

This was a unique opportunity for the team from Humanitas Gavazzeni Hospital as Froedtert Hospital is the only site in the US currently performing this procedure with robotic technology (Figure 3).

Figure 2: Visitors observe a robotic procedure at F&MCW.