John P. Vavalle, MD, MHS, FACC, and Matthew A. Cavender, MD, MPH, FACC, interventional cardiologists and their collaborative team in the Structural Heart Disease Program at UNC, have performed their first transcatheter tricuspid valve replacement in the clinical setting, a revolutionary treatment for patients living with a common type of heart valve disease.
For the first time in the state of North Carolina, the structural heart team at UNC Hospitals has performed a transcatheter tricuspid valve replacement in the clinical setting. The implant, which was only the 12th in the United States, is a revolutionary treatment for patients living with tricuspid valve regurgitation (TR), a common type of heart valve disease.
“We now have a percutaneous, minimally invasive way to fix tricuspid valve regurgitation and offer valve replacement without the need for open heart surgery,” said John Vavalle, MD, MHS, FACC, medical director of the Structural Heart Disease Program at UNC Hospitals and associate professor of medicine at the UNC School of Medicine. “It’s only at a place like UNC, where there is this spirit of collaboration and this desire to push the technology forward, that you can do this kind of work.”
About 5 in 1,000 people in the United States have severe tricuspid valve regurgitation. The condition occurs when the tricuspid valve, the valve that separates the right atrium and the right ventricle of the heart, does not close properly. As a result, blood cannot be ejected to the lungs to be oxygenated and instead flows back into the body.
Without treatment, the condition can become life threatening. It can cause fluid buildup in the abdomen and legs and weakening of the heart muscle, resulting in fatigue, low energy, breathlessness, and even kidney failure. Medicines like diuretics can help improve swelling from the fluid buildup, but fixing a leaky valve previously required open heart surgery.