If you have been diagnosed with severe aortic valve stenosis, your doctor may recommend transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) as a surgical solution. This minimally invasive surgery restores blood flow out of the heart and into the body. It can help improve symptoms such as chest pain, heart failure, fainting, and irregular heart rhythms. 

TAVR surgery is typically recommended when open heart surgery — the more traditional treatment method — is too risky, due to your overall health status. The TAVR procedure offers improvement in patient health and symptoms and can extend the lives of patients with severe aortic stenosis who are either inoperable or at high risk for surgery.  

Our Multidisciplinary Team

St. John's Heart and Vascular Institute has one of the most recognized cardiac and cardiovascular care teams in the county. This includes a multidisciplinary cardiac team consisting of Surgeons, Cardiologist, Anesthesiologists, Radiologists and Nurses, have received extensive training, which allows them to tailor patient’s treatment plan to meet their specific needs. 
 

What to Expect During the TAVR Procedure

This breakthrough heart procedure allows heart specialists to place a new aortic valve in the beating heart through a small tube, or catheter, usually placed in a groin artery rather than with open-heart surgery. The catheter enables the delivery of a collapsible replacement valve to the site of the narrowed valve. Once the new valve has been expanded, it pushes the old valve leaflets out of the way and the new valve takes over regulating blood flow. Traditional surgical valve replacement requires surgically exposing and stopping the patient’s heart through an open chest operation.

Prior to TAVR, patients with narrowed aortic valves, who were considered to be high risk for surgery had limited options and faced a very poor prognosis with long commutes to seek aid; however, now there is no need to travel miles for this life-saving procedure, when world-class care is here, close to home. 
 

Benefits of TAVR

• Is an alternative to standard valve replacement surgery – no open heart procedure required 
• Generally results in faster recovery and shorter hospital stays
• Is associated with less pain and faster return to physical activity than surgery
• Has been associated with risks of death and stroke that are equal to or lower than surgical valve replacement
   

Learn More About Our TAVR Procedure 

To learn more about our services and how we can help, please call the TAVR coordinator, Lorraine Herrick, RN at (805) 216-0502.