86 years old female suffering from breathlessness and cough for the last six
months, gradually worsened and got admitted in other hospital three months back, she was kept in ICU for two months later got discharged. Again she developed breathlessness within a week after discharge, this time she came to us, she could not even complete a sentence without breathing difficulty, she could not walk for few steps.
We thoroughly investigated her and found that she has severe Aortic valve stenosis that is severe narrowing of the one of the heart valves.For this condition the treatment of choice is to under go Surgical Aortic Valve Replacement (SAVR), but in view of her age cardiac surgeon and anaesthetist refused to do the surgery. Due to latest advances in technology for this type of patients an alternative interventional procedure called Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement or Implantation (TAVR/TAVI) was developed. This procedure is similar to stenting procedure but we do this with a big size catheters.
We have successfully done procedure in her, next day patient breathlessness decreased significantly, she was able to speak comfortably and able to walk normally. We discharged her on third day, whereas patients who underwent SAVR require at least one week to 10 days of hospitalisation. She came for follow-up after one week she’s doing well, she shared with us that before this procedure she could not speak even two sentences but one day she talked to her grandson till 2 AM in the morning,
that is the advantage of this procedure. This procedure is a hope for no hope situation
Dr Karunakar, MD, DM, Consultant Cardiologist Apollo Hospitals,
Jubilee Hills
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