Aortic Valve Replacement without Open Heart Surgery

Clinical Team is First in the Great Lakes Bay Region to Perform Procedure.

“This new procedure gives treatment to those who are considered high risk for open heart surgery, and not only improves survival, but it can also improve patients’ quality of life,” says Safwan Kassas, MD, FACC, Invasive and Interventional Cardiologist and primary operator for the procedure.

As a farmer of nearly 7,000 acres in the Saginaw area, Stafford Trinklein is used to hard work. As the years went on, he found himself unable to do the physical labor he loves, let alone tie his shoes without taking a break. He was diagnosed with aortic valve stenosis, a condition caused by the narrowing of the aortic heart valve preventing normal blood flow. He was frequently fatigued and short of breath, preventing him from living the quality of life wanted. Trinklein was not eligible for a traditional open heart surgery due to other risk factors including diabetes, COPD, and decreased kidney function. At 86 years old, he was not interested in having such an invasive procedure.

Currently, medicine can help sufferers like Trinklein feel better in the short-term however there is no drug therapy treatment for severe aortic stenosis. The only effective treatment for the condition is an aortic valve replacement. While replacing one of the heart’s valves through open-heart surgery is the most common treatment, for patients like Trinklein, a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) may be an alternative.

TAVR is a procedure for patients who were previously deemed high risk for open heart surgery, allowing a new heart valve to be implanted. This procedure does not require the chest to be opened or the heart to be stopped, rather a valve is replaced in the catheterization laboratory (cath lab) using a sheath (a short hollow tube) inserted in the groin and through the femoral artery to the heart. A balloon is then inserted in the sheath and used to open up the narrowed heart valve. From there, specialized equipment is used to place the new valve in the patient’s heart. The new valve, made from cow pericardium, is custom fit using CT scans.

The benefits to patients? Recovery is quicker, patients are moving sooner, go home earlier, and rehospitalization rates are lower. The procedure also results in a survival rate the same or better than open-heart, and improves the patient’s quality of life. As Covenant Interventional Cardiologist Manoj Sharma, MD, FACC points out, “Without this new procedure, many patients would be left untreated due to their high surgical risk.”

Covenant Center for the Heart physicians are collaborating on this procedure with Dr. Safwan Kassas of Michigan CardioVascular Institute (MCVI) who performed the first TAVR procedure at Covenant September 30, 2014. After nearly 3 years of rigorous hands-on training and testing, cardiologists work with an entire team of clinical specialists to bring this new treatment to the region.

Trinklein’s wife, Marilynn, cannot believe the improvement. “After the surgery, he told me ‘I’ve got to see the first semi truck load of soybeans come out of the field.’ By the second week after his surgery, he would go watch the combines and semis from his truck. Now, he’s on the tractor in the fields with his children. This has been his life for many years. Staff is out in the field, feels wonderful, and is happy about it.” Marilynn is hoping she will qualify for the procedure as well.

Anyone interested in more information about the TAVR procedure and who qualifies should call MCVI at 989.754.3555 extension 4353 or Covenant Center for the Heart Physician Group at 989.497.9395.