SUDBURY,ON – For some cardiac
patients, open chest surgery is too risky. But now in Northern Ontario, some of these patients have a new option that can extend and improve their lives.
Health Sciences North/Horizon Santé-Nord (HSN) has begun performing Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) for patients with substantial narrowing of the aortic valve (aortic stenosis).
HSN is the first health centre in Northern Ontario to perform
TAVI, and one of only ten centres in Ontario to offer the procedure.
Aortic stenosis reduces blood flow from the heart and can
lead to breathlessness, chest pain, a reduced lifespan, and even death.
TAVI is designed for patients for whom traditional open chest
surgery to replace an aortic valve is not possible or deemed too risky to be a viable option. In a TAVI procedure, a new artificial aortic valve is implanted in a patient’s heart using a special catheter. A catheter is a tube inserted into a large artery through an incision near the groin. The surgical team then guides the catheter up through the aorta to the heart under x-ray control, where the new valve is put in place.
TAVI is less invasive than traditional aortic valve replacement,
with a faster recovery time.
"Tavi is a life-saving procedure,” says Dr. Dino Shukla, Interventional Cardiologist at HSN.
“We’ve created a truly amazing multidisciplinary heart team that is offering patients here in Northern Ontario access to this innovative procedure. TAVI is giving these patients what they didn’t have before: hope for a better, longer life.”
At HSN the TAVI procedure is performed in the Sudbury
Integrated Nickel Operations Cardiac Catheterization Lab. The special “heart team” includes an interventional cardiologist, a cardiac surgeon, an anaesthetist, a perfusionist, X-ray technologists and specially-trained nurses from both the Surgical and Cath Lab departments. There is a Clinical Specialist in attendance
for each procedure
“We are extremely pleased to offer a truly leading-edge procedure utilizing some of the most advanced technology available in the cardiovascular field,” says Dr. Derek MacDonald, lead cardiac surgeon on the TAVI initiative. “This enables our TAVI heart team to provide options to our patients where none were previously
available."
HSN has performed 15 TAVI procedures since introducing the
service in 2013. HSN has received approval and funding from the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care to make TAVI a permanent option for suitable patients.
“The introduction of TAVI again demonstrates that HSN’s Cardiodiagnostics and Surgical programs are among the most advanced in Ontario, ” adds Dr. Denis Roy, HSN’s President and CEO. “It is another example of our strategic direction and pledge to be leaders in patient-centred innovation that improves the quantity and quality of life for the people we care for.”