JULES VUOTTO COPYRIGHT 2019
St Marys
St. Mary Medical Center is the first hospital in the region to successfully use a LOTUS Edge™ Aortic Valve System during a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedure outside of a clinical trial. The St. Mary Heart and Vascular team of experts uses the new device to treat aortic stenosis, a potentially deadly disease that narrows the aortic valve opening in the heart, leading to shortness of breath, fatigue and potentially life-threatening complications.
TAVR is a minimally invasive procedure to replace a narrowed aortic valve that fails to open properly. If the diseased valve is not replaced, symptoms can potentially worsen into heart failure and possibly even death.
A paravalvular leak, or a blood leak around the valve replacement, can cause heart failure or other complications. The LOTUS Edge Valve significantly minimizes the risk of paravalvular leak in TAVR procedures. It is the only replacement valve system technology available that provides physicians with the option to reposition and completely recapture the valve at full deployment in patients if a paravalvular leak is detected.
“This procedure is one of the many comprehensive offerings at St. Mary Heart and Vascular Center,” said David Drucker, MD, cardiologist at St. Mary Medical Center, who led the team in performing the procedure. “Being able to provide this innovative option to our patients will help them on the path to better health.”
“We are proud and excited to announce our first successful deployment of a LOTUS Edge Valve,” added Larry Brilliant, MD, president of St. Mary Medical Center. “This gives our skilled heart and vascular team a new, more precise tool to use in treating aortic stenosis.”
Besides the use of the new LOTUS Edge™ Aortic Valve System, St. Mary Medical Center is making the TAVR minimally invasive heart procedure available for low-risk patients. TAVR, transcatheter aortic valve replacement, used to be only for the sickest patients who were too frail to undergo open heart surgery. Now, Dr. Roi Altit, an interventional cardiologist at St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne, says the procedure is available to nearly all patients with faulty aortic valves. The FDA has now approved the minimally invasive procedure for low risk patients who want to avoid the risks of surgery.
Dr. Altit says two studies have proven that TAVR is better than surgery for a patient during and after the procedure. It has fewer complication risks with a shorter hospitalization and it also benefits the patients six months and a year after the procedure. Patients who had TAVR suffered fewer strokes and heart attacks afterward and were less likely to require another trip to the hospital than those people who had open heart surgery to replace the valve.
Dr. Altit says it's quite an exciting time in his field, because more patients can now be offered the less invasive and more effective procedure. He says while not everyone is a candidate for this minimally invasive procedure, offering it to younger and healthier patients is a real step forward that will save patients time and money.
St. Mary Medical Center has a 97 percent success rate for angioplasties. Angioplasty is a minimally invasive way of opening up clogged arteries and reducing the risk of a heart attack. If performed quickly after a heart attack, it can also limit damage to the heart. St. Mary cardiologists perform thousands of angioplasties every year. Interventional cardiologist Ronald Fields, MD, Medical Director of the St. Mary Heart and Vascular Center says, “We’re prepared to handle a heart attack 24/7 with the full team needed to perform an emergency angioplasty always available.”
For more information about St. Mary Heart and Vascular Center, visit www.stmaryhealthcare.org/heart, or call 1.844.7 ST MARY.