More about TAVR
During transcatheter aortic valve replacement, a guide wire is inserted through a small incision in the thigh and up the aorta and through the stenotic valve. A balloon catheter is then passed over the guide wire. This balloon is inflated to prepare for the placement of the replacement valve. A balloon catheter with a collapsed replacement valve is then inserted. Inflation of the balloon expands the replacement valve. The balloon catheter and guide wire are removed, leaving the functioning replacement valve in place and allowing blood to flow freely out of the heart.
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A new cutting-edge medical procedure not only helped give a Kettering woman back her life, but is also reducing recovery time for hundreds of heart patients locally.
Kettering resident Ruth Mahone said she had a heart murmur most of her life but, “It hasn’t slowed me down. The doctors mentioned it from time to time, but I haven’t had a lot of pain at all.”
Mahone, who is 89 years old, has always lived an active life, taking care of her yard, chopping wood and even clearing her own driveway of snow in the winter. But she noticed that over the past few years, she has had chest pain after any physical exertion.
“I had the pain but mostly ignored it,” Mahone said. “I would just sit down and rest a bit, and it would go away.”
But the pain was a serious heart warning sign, and Mahone eventually took herself in to the emergency room at Kettering Medical Center to have it checked. “One doctor there told me that in six months I may not be alive if I didn’t get surgery,” she said.
Mahone needed a valve replacement, which under normal circumstances involves ope- heart surgery and an elongated stay in the hospital. Instead Mahone was a candidate for the Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement or TAVR procedure, a minimally invasive alternative to heart surgery during which the aortic valve is replaced through a catheter in the groin.
“Patients like Ruth who have aortic stenosis, which is a tightening and narrowing of the valve, are ideal candidates for this procedure,” said Dr. Brian Schwartz of Kettering Medical Center. “Until last year the only treatment option would be open heart surgery, which requires that we split the breast bone and put the patient on a heart/lung bypass machine while surgery is underway.”
Open-heart surgery normally requires patients to remain in the hospital for up to a week and the recovery period is from three to six months. “Patients who are in their 80s and 90s don’t do as well because of their risks of undergoing major surgery,” Swartz said.
The TAVR procedure was developed in France in 2001, but Mahone was one of the first patients at Kettering to undergo the surgery. “We literally had dozens of patients waiting to have this done,” Swartz said. “It’s simply a great thing for older patients and changes their lives.”
For Mahone, this meant a shorter hospital stay and minimal recovery.According to her son, Terence Mahone, who lives in Louisville, “Mom didn’t miss a beat. She was scared when she went in but it was all over in a few hours.”
In fact, Terence said surgeons were coming out to tell him his mother was safely out of surgery less than three hours later. “From what I observed, it was everything they had expected it to be,” he said. “She went in on the Monday before Thanksgiving (2014) and we were both home in time to have Thanksgiving dinner. She was driving again by Saturday.”
Mahone said she was able to get back to her life quickly and drove to church on Sunday, where her fellow parishioners were surprised to see her so soon after heart surgery.
“The treatment from the hospital was exceptional,” Terence said. “This is a big event in a person’s life and they respected that. Without any reservation I’d say she got the best treatment and she’s doing great for this time of her life.”
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