Replacement of heart valve may let more people avoid surgery in coming days. No more surgical procedure required for an affected heart valve might seem practical soon. According to the new study, it is often better to have a new valve placed through a tube into an artery instead.
This new treatment is expected to quickly transform the problem that affects millions of people worldwide. A stiff or narrowed aortic valve does not let blood flow as it should. So, until recently, with the help of a heart-lung machine, it becomes possible to fix severe cases requiring a major operation. In the older technique, surgeons have to cut out the old valve and sew in a new one.
There was a discovery of expandable aortic valves that can be guided to the heart through a catheter into the blood vessel and located inside the old valve. But they are only used in people who are at high or moderate risk. So, according to the new studies, these valves can be used in people having a low risk for the operation.
Dr. Joseph Cleveland, a heart surgeon at the University of Colorado said, “This is our last frontier” to make these devices a standard of care. “It’s a great thing for patients to be able to avoid major surgery.”
The results were published by the New England Journal of Medicine Saturday and were to be discussed at an American College of Cardiology conference in New Orleans on Sunday.
According to one study, around 1,000 patients, who were given an expandable Edwards Lifesciences valve (standard surgery) were died, suffered a stroke or needed to be re-hospitalized after a year or so.
And according to another study that included 1,400 patients who undergone Medtronic expandable valve surgery, 6.7 percent of the surgery group and 5.3 percent of the others had died or had a disabling stroke after two years.
It was found that in both studies, there were certain problems associated with surgery, such as major bleeding and development of a fluttering heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation. The researchers found that 17 percent of expandable valve recipients later required a pacemaker in the Medtronic study.
In the United States, surgeries to replace aortic valves have been decreasing. Only about 25,000 are expected to be done this year and Dr. Joseph expects that to drop by half in 2020 and further drop in 2021. It is still required to be examined if the new replacement works 100 percent. Catheter-based approaches for solving problems related to other heart valves, such as the mitral valve, also are in the testing phase.
