TAVR: Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement & Sapien Valve
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Does your heart feel "off" sometimes? Are you getting tired and out of breath when exercising? Aortic stenosis can make you worried that you're headed for a serious heart problem. The heart experts at UVA Health can help.
We can treat aortic stenosis by replacing your aortic valve. In the past, that meant open surgery. But with transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), you can avoid open surgery. You won't need the large cut and long recovery that's needed with open surgery. TAVR only uses a small cut. Through that cut, we can fix your aortic valve with a new valve, called the Sapien valve.
Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement at UVA Health
Our heart care services got the highest possible rating from U.S. News & World Report. They've also named 4 of our heart, vein, and artery treatments and procedures as "high performing," including aortic valve surgery. That means you're in good hands here.
Aortic valve replacement with TAVR means we don't make big cuts on your body (like with open surgery). Instead, we use a small tube called a catheter (it's a minimally invasive procedure). Through the catheter, we can send the Sapien valve up to your heart and put it in place.
How Does the TAVR Procedure Work?
To start, you'll get medicine to make you fall asleep. Then we put a wand-like tool in your mouth and down your throat to your stomach. It lets us see your heart and aortic valve while we work on it. This is called a transesophageal echocardiogram.
We make a small cut on a blood vessel in either your leg or your ribs to put in the catheter. The Sapien valve is attached to a balloon at the end of the catheter. We then send the catheter with the valve on it through your blood vessels to your heart (called cardiac catheterization).
When the Sapien valve gets to your aortic valve, we inflate the balloon. That expands the valve into position. It also moves the diseased valve out of the way. The new valve works the same as the old valve. It opens and closes like a 1-way door, only letting blood flow in the right direction.
Who Qualifies for TAVR?
If you're at high risk for having surgery complications and have serious aortic stenosis, you might be eligible for TAVR. TAVR helps people who are too sick for regular surgery get the help they need.
You aren't a good candidate for TAVR if you:
- Have mostly just aortic valve leakage or regurgitation (blood flows backward through the valve), not stenosis (narrowed valve)
- Have an infection
- Recently had a heart attack or stroke
Advanced Cardiac Valve Center
UVA's cardiac valve surgeons perform traditional heart valve surgery and offer less invasive options for patients who can't undergo traditional surgery.
[MUSIC PLAYING] At the University of Virginia, where the Advanced Cardiac Valve Center is, is a group of people dedicated to the care of individuals with heart valve disease. In the past, we've done some really tremendous work with more invasive approaches, open chest surgeries. And with time, we've really seen the field evolve to smaller less invasive approaches to be able to help the patient with either narrowed heart valve, something like aortic stenosis, or a leaky heart valve, something like mitral regurgitation.
The minimally invasive approaches have allowed patients that are not eligible for conventional surgery to get new treatment options. At UVA, many of these percutaneous technologies started here or were on the forefront here in trials. Particularly with the MitraClip, we have the first or second largest experience in the entire United States with placing the MitraClip in patients.
With regard to the transcatheter aortic valves, we were in the very first trials in the United States and have now done over several hundred percutaneous valve repair replacements. So we've been very involved in these technologies right from the start. The real benefit in having so many different people working within their area of expertise but still interested in these types of patients that have valve disease is that they really get the utmost and best personal care that you can imagine.
It was across the board efficient and kind and human. Nobody made you feel like a number. You weren't just another body on a gurney getting pushed around from place to place. You were truly treated as an individual with your particular needs being considered. It feels very good to be known as a person, not a case.
In many places, the surgeons and cardiologists, they don't really see eye to eye. They don't really talk to each other. Ever since I've been here, I've noticed that's very unique at UVA. All the members of the team get along exceptionally well, and that's really because we all care about the outcome of the patient.
I think meeting the UVA team was what sealed the deal. They were very human. They were very kind. They listened. And best of all, they explained.
Many of our patients are coming from hours away, four or five hours away. They'll see all the members of the team that they need to see. They'll get all the testing within a very short period of time, whether it's one or two days. And by the end of our team meeting, which happens every week, we essentially have a plan for what that patient may be eligible for or could get for treatment.
They were very open with everything I wanted to know. I couldn't come up with a question they weren't willing and able to answer.
At UVA, we see many patients that are turned down by other hospitals, other physicians, other surgeons. And really, this is their last resort. If we don't offer them something, they don't have any other option. And many of those patients, we have something to offer for them, and we can help those patients. And it's very gratifying to see their end result when they do well, and they're living life and enjoying life again.
They've given me 18 months of feeling very good and the hope of four or five more years. Who knows? A lot of people live to be 95-96 these days. And in the meanwhile, I'll go on writing. I've taken up painting again. My recommendation to you is get it done and then get on with life. Enjoy yourself. Make the most of the time you've gained.
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Heart Valve Disease
- Refer a Patient
- Bicuspid Aortic Valve Treatment
- Melody: Percutaneous Pulmonary Valve Insertion Melody: Percutaneous Pulmonary Valve Insertion
- Valve Replacement Procedures Heart Valve Replacement Procedures
- MitraClip MitraClip
- Mitral Valve Repair Mitral Valve Repair
- Open Aortic Valve Replacement Aortic Valve Replacement Open Surgery