210 686 9788 6980 430 481
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6 Erythrou Stavrou Str., Marousi Mitera Children’s Hospital

About Dr. Afroditi Tzifa

Doctor Tzifa is a fully trained Paediatric and Adult Congenital Heart Disease Cardiologist, subspecializing in congenital heart disease interventions and peri-interventional imaging.Doctor Aphrodite Tzifa studied Medicine at the University of Athens and moved to England in 1996, where she specialized in Pediatrics and subspecialized in Pediatric Cardiology and Adult Congenital Heart Disease. She has trained in interventional cardiology for congenital heart disease, as well as structural interventions for adults with cardiac shunts and valvular leaks. Beyond cardiac interventions, she has received training in cardiac MRI for congenital heart disease, cardiac arrhythmias, adult congenital heart disease and fetal Cardiology.

Areas of Expertise

Paediatric Cardiology and Adult Congenital Heart Disease is a highly specialised medical specialty with multiple subspecialties.

Humanitarian Activity

Congenital heart diseases (abnormalities) are accidental events that affect mothers regardless of age and socioeconomic level.

Rare and Innovative Interventions

Our team performs rare and innovative interventions that require a “Heart Team” approach.

Advice
for parents and adults with congenital heart disease

Find answers on everything connected with the health of your kid’s heart.

Interventional Cardiology for Congenital Heart Disease

Transcatheter interventions are performed to treat narrowed heart valves and vessels (pulmonary and aortic valvuloplasty for valvar aortic and pulmonary stenosis, aortic angioplasty or pulmonary artery balloon dilation). Atrial and ventricular septal defects (ASD / VSD), as well as patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) can also be dealt with this method by implanting devices to occlude the defects. In addition, stent implantation can be performed in narrowed large vessels, such as the pulmonary arteries or for coarctation of the aorta, or even in small vessels (for example the patent ductus arteriosus) that must remain open, thus avoiding surgical placement of a Blalock Taussig shunt. A most recent advancement of transcatheter interventions is valve-in-valve therapy, which can also be applied in congenital patients, eg. after surgical repair for Tetralogy of Fallot, where the pulmonary valve has to be replaced. In these cases, transcatheter implantation of pulmonary valve may be possible, avoiding a repeat open-heart operation. Nowadays it is also possible to perform hybrid cardiac interventions (interventional catheterization in conjunction with mini-surgery), in appropriately selected cases, where avoidance of going on bypass is imperative.

Transcatheter cardiac procedures are performed as an alternative method to cardiac surgery in all advanced paediatric cardiology and cardiac surgery centers worldwide. However, their successful completion requires access to specialist teams with the appropriate infrastructure and equipment, as well as close collaboration between the groups of doctors and technologists involved.

Management of Congenital Heart Disease

Paediatric Cardiology and Paediatric Cardiac Surgery are medical sub-specialties that have been developed in recent decades. Continued and rapid evolution of this specialist field, diagnostic access as well as new treatments for congenital heart disease have revolutionized the management of the patients.

 

Modern methods of investigation and treatment of congenital heart disease

 

 At the onset of management of congenital heart disease, echocardiography and cardiac catheterization procedures were the only way of patient imaging and establishing a diagnosis. Nowadays, diagnostic cardiac catheterizations are performed rarely, since advanced echocardiography and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have been developed to offer non-invasively accurate information about anatomy and physiology, avoiding any discomfort or radiation exposure to the petient. However, there are cases where, except for anatomy, it is also necessary to measure intracardiac pressures, ie when assessment of pulmonary hypertension is required. In this cases, a diagnostic cardiac catheterization can be performed jointly with an MRI procedure at the same time and with the same anaesthesia (hybrid MRI catheterisations). Interventional (therapeutic) catheterizations of congenital heart disease have been performed for over four decades with excellent outcomes as an alternative to open heart surgery, in appropriately selected cases. Transcatheter interventions are performed through large arteries and veins, most commonly through the patient’s groin or neck vessels. Hospitalization and patient recovery is rapid, about 1-2 days (as compared to 5-10 days of hospital stay after open heart surgery). Interventional cardiac catheterization procedures are performed by specialist trained teams in highly specialized centers.

What they said about us

Dear Dr Tzifa, My family and I have only the warmest wishes for You and Your family for these holidays! For luck, hapinness and health to follow You through the year and always! I am also happy to say that I enjoy my life to the fullest, and I am also able to be physically active as much as I want, for what I thank you! Respectfully DK
Ms. Tzifa, we would like to thank you very much from the depths of our heart for the medical support and help you have given to us, so we can make a decision of such a difficult surgery of our daughter N. with such excellent results.
I want to express my gratitude to an excellent and great doctor who, through the intervention she performed to my son P., she gave us strength again to stand on our feet. I am glad to have found her and that she has been able to help our son and through him, the whole family.
Ms. Tzifa, thank you wholeheartedly for helping us in our efforts and through this difficult and long journey. You stood by our side until we managed to get to the desired result.
Our feelings and our thankfulness cannot be simply put on paper, but somehow, we would like to thank our doctor, Dr Aphrodite Tzifa, who, besides a well-known doctor, is above all human. From the first moment, she stood next to us and gave us hope and optimism about the problem that was found in our family and she was finally confirmed! We wish you strength and to be able to find solutions to every problem you are faced with, and to cure all the children of the world! Finally, we would like to thank the nurses and the rest of the staff of the "MITERA" and the Paediatric Cardiology ward for all the care, that made our stay human and pleasant!!!
This message is a way to express my need to tell you THANKS! Thanks for the intimacy that you made us feel. You are very "human," which is extremely rare for doctors of your level. Thank you for the directness in our communication, thanks for your care and your concern that you have shown to our little son, thank you for your time, your effort, so that you can do the best for us!!! Thanks for everything, so general and simple.
Good morning Aphrodite, Happy New Year. Have a great 2013 and we hope everything you wish comes true! We are fine. Everything seems to be great. We had an adventure that luckily ended great. Thank you for being and remain there for all the kids that need you. If it was not you…we would still be searching and we would still not know the diagnosis of our kid! There were so many years that she was troubled unfairly, by mistake…Tomorrow is the first day of the New Year! I hope this year gives health to the whole world!
Dear Dr Tzifa, As we did not want to waste your time and sometimes, some things should be put in writing, we are sending you this message. We would like to thank you again for your interest, your support and your help all these days that we have been at MITERA. The whole team was incredible! The team of surgeons, the nurses and the doctors in the ICU, the secretaries and the whole team of cardiologists, and the rest of your collaborators were all fantastic! These days we had the opportunity to see the hard work that you are undertaking in order to give joy again to all the kids! You were all together from morning until night beside us and next to all children! Congratulations for your professionalism! Thank you for being there to give this love and joy back to us! I hope that you will continue for a long time! Congratulations to the group’s Coach (for the reasons that mentioned above) but also personally, since you have stood next to us in difficult moment of our lives.
On July 21, 2017, a long open-heart surgery was performed on our child Niki, by a great team of excellent and experienced doctors at MITERA, who by performing their duty transmitted to us an aura of great security, knowledge and experience. This care continued after the surgery, in the Intensive Care Unit and the ward. We would like to thank all of you from the bottom of our hearts, especially our Paediatric cardiac surgeon and our paediatric cardiologist, who gave us back our angel strong and healthy.