University of MIchigan Health C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, part of Ann Arbor-based Michigan Medicine, is among the first in the U.S. to perform a catheter-based pulmonary valve replacement on a congenital heart disease patient.
The cardiology team performed the Harmony transcatheter pulmonary valve procedure on a 28-year-old patient with chronic pulmonary valve regurgitation in June, according to a June 30 news release.
The procedure takes about one to two hours. The Harmony valve, made by Medtronic, is self-expanding and is expected to last as long as a surgical valve.
“Open-heart surgery is the current standard of care for replacing the pulmonary valve in patients with severe pulmonary valve regurgitation,” said Jeffrey Zampi, MD, a pediatric cardiologist at Mott who performed the procedure. "Using our current technology we're able to avoid surgical valve replacements in only a small percentage of congenital heart patients as they enter their adult years. This new method will allow us to significantly expand minimally invasive options to more patients with pulmonary valve disease.
"While this new catheter-based approach doesn't necessarily replace open heart surgery, it may delay or reduce the number of surgeries patients need to treat pulmonary valve disease," Dr. Zampi added.
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