"Tens of Thousands of Heart Patients May Not Need Open-Heart Surgery" - Gina Kolata
The operation is a daring one: To replace a failing heart valve, cardiologists insert a replacement through a patient’s groin and thread it all the way to the heart, maneuvering it into the site of the old valve. The procedure, called transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), has been reserved mostly for patients so old and sick they might not survive open-heart surgery. Now, two large clinical trials show that TAVR is just as useful in younger, healthier patients. It might even be better, offering lower risks of disabling strokes and death, compared to open-heart surgery. Cardiologists say it will likely change the standard of care for most patients with failing aortic valves. “If I were a patient, I would choose TAVR,” said Gilbert Tang, MD, senior faculty of cardiovascular surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who was not involved in the new research.
— Gilbert Tang, MD, Senior Faculty, Cardiovascular Surgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai