Until now, there haven’t been a lot of options for someone whose aortic valve (the one that lets the blood go from the heart to the rest of the body) has gotten gummed up by calcium deposits. Surgeons had to crack open the sternum to get at the heart, or make do with less effective drug treatments if the patient was too sick or too old for aggressive measures.
Now, with this medical advance, surgeons can help without so much as nicking a patient’s chest – by shaking a catheter up through the groin. This technique is known as transcatheter aortic valve implantation, or TAVI.) The technique isn’t just easier for these fragile patients, in the first studies, the incision-free approach helped them live longer than people getting standard heart treatments.
Doctors are making similar progress in using catheters to replace other kinds of heart valves – Elizabeth tailor had her mitral valve repaired, then tweeted about it! – and cardiologists say that the way they treat heart valve disease may never be the same.
Now, with this medical advance, surgeons can help without so much as nicking a patient’s chest – by shaking a catheter up through the groin. This technique is known as transcatheter aortic valve implantation, or TAVI.) The technique isn’t just easier for these fragile patients, in the first studies, the incision-free approach helped them live longer than people getting standard heart treatments.
Doctors are making similar progress in using catheters to replace other kinds of heart valves – Elizabeth tailor had her mitral valve repaired, then tweeted about it! – and cardiologists say that the way they treat heart valve disease may never be the same.
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