Mercy Heart & Vascular Institute is among the select providers in the nation to offer patients Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) - a less-invasive, heart valve replacement procedure designed to treat patients with severe Aortic Stenosis.
TAVR enables replacement of the aortic valve without opening the chest, as is done when using the traditional Surgical Aortic Valve Replacement (SAVR) procedure. Currently, this less-invasive procedure is available for patients considered to be too high-risk for open-heart surgery.
With TAVR, the replacement heart valve is squeezed down onto a balloon, inserted into the body via a catheter (a long flexible tube) and tracked to the heart for implantation. This can be done without opening the chest or using the heart-lung pump, inserting the catheter through the femoral artery (in the groin). When the valve is positioned inside the faulty aortic valve, the balloon is inflated and the replacement valve is precisely positioned.
TAVR is approved by the Food & Drug Administration for patients with severe aortic stenosis who are not candidates for surgery.
As with surgical heart valve replacement, TAVR provides both short- and long-term relief of aortic stenosis symptoms by restoring normal aortic valve function and improving overall life expectancy and function. |
