Your Guide to Percutaenous Heart Valve Surgery

Information for Patients

Aortic stenosis is a common valvular heart disease. Aortic stenosis mostly affects the elderly, and causes many severe symptoms and decreased quality of life. Over time, the calcium deposits on the valve leaflets cause the valve to become stiff and narrow. This stops the valve from opening and closing properly. In most cases, surgical valve replacement is the best way to treat patients with severe aortic stenosis.

In January 2005, the Heart Centre at St. Paul’s Hospital was the first centre in the world to develop a new way of replacing the aortic valve without doing open heart surgery, using a small cut in the groin. Since then, Dr. John Webb and the Heart Centre team have performed over 100 such procedures, called percutaneous aortic valve replacements.

In October 2005, the Heart Centre cardiac surgery and interventional cardiology team was also the first to begin using a similar way to replace the aortic valve through a small incision in the chest without using open heart by-pass. This procedure, called transapical valve replacement, has now been done over 50 times at the Heart Centre.

Although the early results of these new procedures are looking promising, transcatheter aortic valve replacement is only an option for patients who are at very high risk for complications during regular open heart surgery.

If you are coming to St. Paul’s Hospital for a percutaneous heart valve procedure, you can click here to view the Patient’s Guide to Percutaneous Valve Surgery.