Minimally invasive TAVR procedure gives museum volunteer additional years of life
The heart care team at M Health Fairview St. John’s Hospital ended January with a milestone: They completed the 800th transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedure at St. John’s. It was also a milestone day for Audrey Olsen, 87, who is getting back to better health thanks to that valve replacement.
“I thought I could be on my last legs,” Audrey said. David Olsen said his wife Audrey had been getting breathless from walking 10 or 12 steps before the procedure.
Audrey had aortic stenosis, which is a heart valve disease that has an 80% mortality rate within five years without treatment. Aortic stenosis is a progressive condition that occurs when the valve to the heart’s main artery doesn’t open or close properly. That limits the amount of blood that can flow out to the rest of the body and eventually leads to heart failure and death. Traditionally, open-heart surgery was the only treatment option. Now, the minimally invasive TAVR procedure is giving people extra years to live without feeling weak or breathless.
“If the procedure goes well, and in the mass majority of cases they do, our patients will go home the next day,” said Marat Yanavitski, MD, the cardiologist who led Audrey's TAVR procedure. "Most of them will be back to normal life or better within a couple of weeks. It’s a big difference from open-heart surgery, which has much longer recovery times.”
Just three days after getting her new heart valve, Audrey could already walk 40 or 50 feet without getting breathless.
“When we fix things, it’s almost an immediate response,” said Jim Beck, RN, who has been with the M Health Fairview heart care team since TAVR procedures were first being introduced. “If you look at aortic stenosis, you’ve got a tight aortic valve. But the second that we deploy a new aortic valve, they now have a completely open aortic valve. We see rapid improvement in how the patients are doing. Seeing that almost immediate response is what I enjoy most.”
