Docs successfully replace heart valve outside heart

Doctors in the United States have successfully performed the heart valve replacement surgery using a minimally invasive procedure outside the heart for the first time.

Henry Ford Hospital performed the unique, transcatheter tricuspid valve replacement, which was pioneered in Germany and a metro Detroit woman's tricuspid valve, one of four valves that regulates blood flow in the heart, was replaced during the 2-hour procedure.

William O'Neill, medical director of Henry Ford's Center for Structural Heart Disease and lead physician for the procedure, said that 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 and they get a lot of swelling and severe liver congestion.

He said that the patients are in and out of the hospital, and it really causes a lot of morbitity. So there's a huge, unmet clinical need. Individuals with this type of valve problem now have another option.

In the unique procedure at Henry Ford Hospital, Dr. O'Neill threaded a catheter through in a vein in the patient's groin to her upper abdomen. There, he inserted the TAVR valve at the junction of the right atrium and the inferior vena cava (IVC), the main vein that brings deoxygenated blood back into the heart.

The Henry Ford team first braced the inside of the IVC with a metal, expandable stent. He then used the catheter to insert and expand a TAVR valve to fit snugly inside and used 3D modeling to create a working replica of the patient's heart, which helped them properly plan the procedure and choose an appropriately sized valve in advance. Once deployed, the new valve stopped blood from leaking and pooling in the patient's abdomen and lower extremities.