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Henry Ford Hospital performs first US transcatheter tricuspid valve replacement
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During a 2-hour procedure conducted July 31, physicians at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit performed a transcatheter tricuspid valve replacement, the first such procedure in the US to replace a heart valve outside of the heart.
The recipient was a woman who was not considered a candidate for traditional open-heart surgery, and had been turned down for treatment at another major medical center, according to the release.
“There are a lot of people who have damage of the tricuspid valve, and the surgery is risky, so doctors just try to give them medical therapy,” William O’Neill, MD, medical director of the hospital’s Center for Structural Heart Disease and lead physician for the surgery, said in the release. “… They’re in and out of the hospital, and it really causes a lot of morbidity. So there’s a huge unmet clinical need. Individuals with this type of valve problem now have another option.”
The minimally invasive procedure, developed in Germany, involves threading a catheter through a vein in the groin into the upper abdomen. A TAVR valve is inserted at the junction of the inferior vena cava and the right atrium, with the inferior vena cava braced using an expandable metal stent. Prior to the surgery, the team developed a working replica of the heart via 3D modeling, in order to prepare for the replacement and select a valve of appropriate size.
According to the release, initial outcomes from the procedure has been favorable. The patient remained in the hospital for 5 days before being discharged.
“There’s already a huge drop in the pressure in the abdomen,” O’Neill said in the release.