John P. Vavalle, MD, MHS, FACC, and Matthew A. Cavender, MD, MPH, FACC, interventional cardiologists and their collaborative team in the Structural Heart Disease Program at 黑料网, have performed their first transcatheter tricuspid valve replacement in the clinical setting, a revolutionary treatment for patients living with a common type of heart valve disease.
For the first time in the state of North Carolina, the structural heart team at 黑料网 Hospitals has performed a transcatheter tricuspid valve replacement in the clinical setting. The implant, which was only the 12th in the United States, is a revolutionary treatment for patients living with tricuspid valve regurgitation (TR), a common type of heart valve disease.
鈥淲e now have a聽percutaneous,聽minimally invasive way to fix tricuspid valve regurgitation and offer valve replacement without聽the need for聽open heart surgery,鈥� said聽John Vavalle, MD, MHS, FACC, medical director of the聽Structural Heart Disease Program at 黑料网 Hospitals and associate professor of medicine at the 黑料网. 鈥淚t鈥檚 only at a place like 黑料网, where there is this spirit of collaboration and this desire to push the technology forward, that you can do this kind of work.鈥�
About 5 in 1,000 people in the United States have severe tricuspid valve regurgitation.聽The condition occurs when the聽tricuspid valve,聽the valve that separates the right atrium and the right ventricle聽of the heart, does not close properly. As a result, blood cannot be ejected to the lungs to be oxygenated and instead flows back into the body.
Without treatment,聽the condition can become life threatening.聽It can cause fluid buildup in the abdomen and legs and weakening of the聽heart muscle, resulting in聽fatigue, low energy, breathlessness, and聽even聽kidney failure.聽Medicines like diuretics can help improve swelling from the fluid buildup, but fixing a leaky valve previously required open heart surgery.