The Henry Ford team first braced the inside of the IVC with a metal, expandable stent. He then used the catheter to insert and expand a TAVR valve to fit snugly inside.
The team used 3D modeling to create a working replica of the patient's heart, which helped them properly plan the procedure and choose an appropriately sized valve in advance.
Once deployed, the new valve stopped blood from leaking and pooling in the patient's abdomen and lower extremities.
"There's already a huge drop in the pressure in the abdomen," Dr. O'Neill says. Doctors monitored pressure through catheters inserted in the IVC above and below the new valve.
Henry Ford Hospital cardiologist William O'Neill, M.D., Medical Director for the Henry Ford Center for Structural Heart Disease discusses the non-surgical procedure -- the first in the United States -- his team used to insert a valve outside the heart of a metro Detroit woman
(Photo Credit: Henry Ford Hospital)
Henry Ford Hospital cardiologist William O'Neill, M.D. is the first in the United States to insert a valve inside a stent at the junction of the right atrium and inferior vena cava, just outside the heart of a metro Detroit woman.
(Photo Credit: Henry Ford Hospital)
For the first time in the United States, doctors at Henry Ford Hospital used a minimally invasive procedure to replace a failing, hard-to-reach heart valve with a new one and placed it just outside the heart.
(Photo Credit: Henry Ford Hospital)
Source: Henry Ford Health System