A 64-year-old woman successfully underwent a minimally invasive procedure using a trans-catheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR) at the Apollo Hospital. The procedure was performed over 2 hours by the doctors of Apollo Hospitals Navi Mumbai. The patient has recovered well and discharged too. Doctors said the patient, a resident of Thane, was having difficulty in breathing and was coughing copiously. The patient had previously undergone mitral valve replacement surgery 15 years back. After relevant investigations, it was found that the replaced valve had degenerated over time and required another replacement.
A TMVR is a mitral valve replacement procedure that allows cardiologists to replace a diseased previously surgically implanted mitral valve with a new valve without surgery. During this procedure, the cardiologist inserted a catheter (a thin flexible tube) into the vein using advanced imaging and guided it along with a new valve to the heart. It has benefits such as lesser pain and a shorter recovery period.
Dr Rahul Gupta Consultant Interventional Cardiology said, structural heart interventions such as TMVR are a great advancement in the field of Interventional Cardiology as elderly patients who are at a high risk for medical complications for an open heart surgery can now be safely treated through such nonsurgical minimally invasive procedure as was the case with this patient.
“Since the patient was at high risk for a repetitive open-heart surgery, a minimally invasive percutaneous approach was used to replace the diseased mitral valve. It was Apollo Hospitals Navi Mumbai’s first transcatheter mitral valve repair (TMVR) therapy that delivered a minimally invasive treatment. The minimally invasive procedure proved to be easy on patients as the complications are marginal, like negligible bleeding or pain followed by a quick recovery,” he said.
Santosh Marathe, Regional CEO, said, “This was the first successful case of TMVR performed by our cardiologists and it has brought a new ray of hope to the patient and her family. Such advancements in curative care have the potential to increase the life expectancy and the quality of life of the patients.”
