Experts at the Heart Valve Center, including cardiac surgeon Dr. Mathew R. Williams, use nonsurgical procedures like transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) to care for people who have aortic valve disease.
Photo: NYU Langone Staff
Most people who receive a diagnosis of aortic valve stenosis, a type of aortic valve disease that prevents the valve from opening properly, require treatment. Open heart surgery was traditionally the standard of care to replace the aortic valve for people considered to be at low risk. But now the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expanded approval of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), a nonsurgical procedure, for almost all people in need of aortic valve repair. The TAVR procedure was previously only approved for high-risk patients.
“This is absolutely a game changer,” Mathew R. Williams, MD, director of NYU Langone’s Heart Valve Center and associate professor in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, tells NBC Nightly News.
During the TAVR procedure, a doctor makes a small incision in the groin and inserts a catheter containing an artificial aortic valve into the artery. Then the catheter is advanced to the aortic valve where the new valve is deployed.
Dr. Williams says, “Patients are walking within two and a half hours of the procedure, and an overwhelming majority of them go home the next day.”
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