Shannon Medical Center | Health Beat | Fall 2019

If you are experiencing symptoms of aortic valve disease or would like more information about treatment options, call the Shannon Regional Heart Center at 325-481-2281 . Fall 2019 3 Heart health M aria Mares beams as she holds her 6-month-old grandson. She loves getting to spend part of her day helping to care for him, and she treasures those moments together. However, just one month earlier, she was not able to fully enjoy his visits or do many of the normal activities most people take for granted. “I would just spend all day sleeping in my re- cliner,” says Maria. “I didn’t have any energy, and I didn’t feel like I could do very much. I was very limited.” Maria was diagnosed with severe aortic ste- nosis, a degenerative disease in which calcium deposits build up and prevent the heart’s aortic valve from opening and closing properly.This makes it harder for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body, which greatly affects overall health and restricts daily activities. “The aortic valve is the valve that connects the heart to the rest of the body,” says Jason Felger, MD, cardiovascular surgeon. “When that valve doesn’t open well, the prognosis is worse than most advanced cancers. It really is a deadly disease that, if left untreated, can be fatal within 12 months.” Maria learned that she was a good candi- date for an innovative new procedure: TAVR, or transcatheter aortic valve replacement. Shannon Medical Center recently began offering the pro- cedure for cardiac patients needing valve replace- ment who were high risk or too sick for traditional open-heart surgery. Currently, Shannon is the only hospital in the region to offer TAVR, and in May 2019, Maria became the first patient to undergo the procedure there. The TAVR team at Shannon includes Dr. Felger; fellow cardiovascular surgeon Andrew Hume, MD; and interventional cardiologists Chris Haddad, MD, and Rudy Haddad, MD. “Originally TAVR was developed for patients who could not tolerate an open procedure, com- monly referred to as open-heart surgery,” says Dr. Chris Haddad. “This procedure has been in New heart procedure brings life-changing vitality ‘I FEEL SO GOOD NOW’ Most patients start feeling better and will see im- provement in their symptoms right away. Maria says she has never felt as good as she has since the procedure. “When they told me how they were going to use the new procedure, I said, ‘Let’s go for it,’ ” she says. “By a week, I could walk, cook, clean all of my house. It’s given me a lot of energy to do a lot of stuff I could not do before.” Shannon’s TAVR team agrees that the pro- cedure is one of the most significant advances in cardiovascular medicine since the heart transplant. “To go from not being able to walk from one side of the room to the other to—literally—that night being able to walk across your room or down the hallway without symptoms is truly a life-changing event,” says Dr. Rudy Haddad. “For us, it is a very rewarding thing to be able to help our patients in this way and enable them to re- turn to an improved quality of life in such a short time.” Maria agrees as she hugs her grandson tightly. “I feel so good now,” she says. “I am so happy. My four doctors are my angels.” the U.S. for some years now but was really iso- lated to bigger medical centers in Dallas, Austin and Houston. It was important to us to bring this procedure here to Shannon so that patients would have access to this truly lifesaving option close to home.” A LESS INVASIVE SOLUTION Aortic valve replacement is traditionally per- formed through surgical replacement of the entire aortic valve.This method is still recommended for some patients. It usually requires a five- to six-day stay in the hospital and several weeks of recovery. Patients who are medium to high risk or too sick to undergo an open procedure may be good candidates for TAVR. It is a minimally invasive, catheter-based procedure that repairs the valve without removing the old, damaged valve. It in- stead places a replacement valve into the existing aortic valve—similar to how a stent is inserted into an artery. A thin, flexible catheter is inserted into the femoral artery through a small inci- sion in the groin area.The cardiac team, which includes cardiovascular surgeons, interventional cardiologists, nurses and imaging specialists, uses special technology and imaging to guide the valve through the tube to its destination and then de- ploy it in the precise location. A TAVR procedure lasts between one and two hours and is performed in Shannon’s hybrid op- erating room. Patients are under general anesthe- sia.The procedure does not require stopping the heart, and there is no need for a cardiopulmonary bypass. Patients usually stay in the hospital for two days, and most begin walking within a day of their procedure. “We encourage patients to get up and move on the day of the procedure and the next two days in the hospital,” says Dr. Hume. “This procedure is designed to facilitate recovery markedly faster than the six weeks of recovery for an open pro- cedure. Patients should be able to resume daily activities within a week.”