Contemporaneous management of valvular heart disease and aortopathy in aircrew

Non-coronary cardiac surgery and percutaneous cardiology procedures in aircrew

This manuscript focuses on the broad aviation medicine considerations that are required to optimally manage aircrew following non-coronary surgery or percutaneous cardiology interventions (both pilots and non-pilot aviation professionals). Aircrew may have pathology identified earlier than non-aircrew due to occupational cardiovascular screening and while aircrew should be treated using international guidelines, if several interventional approaches exist, surgeons/interventional cardiologists should consider which alternative is most appropriate for the aircrew role being undertaken; liaison with the aircrew medical examiner is strongly recommended prior to intervention to fully understand this. This is especially important in aircrew of high-performance aircraft or in aircrew who undertake aerobatics. Many postoperative aircrew can return to restricted flying duties, although aircrew should normally not return to flying for a minimum period of 6 months to allow for appropriate postoperative recuperation and assessment of cardiac function and electrophysiology.