Health First’s Heart Center Performs 1,000th Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement

Minimally invasive TAVRs are lengthening lives on the Space Coast

Patient was out of the hospital in two days – in New Jersey for son’s wedding the following week.  Minimally invasive TAVRs are lengthening lives on the Space Coast. WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Barbara Urenovich of Palm Bay was in a hurry to have her transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). No, it wasn’t the diagnosis – critical aortic valve stenosis. She needed to get cleared to hop a flight and make her youngest son’s wedding in New Jersey.

Aortic stenosis hampers blood flow and causes heart damage. Untreated, people live just a few years with it, but a valve replacement can return patients to all normal activities. Urenovich’s physician advised against the trip north unless she had a valve replacement procedure.

“There was no way I was going to miss this wedding,” she told herself when her son first broke the news of his engagement, but then, “well, I thought I was going to miss it!”

In just eight years, the Heart Center at Health First’s Holmes Regional Medical Center has performed more than 1,000 successful transcatheter aortic valve replacements (TAVR).

“Patients with critical aortic valve stenosis, which is rather common here, don’t have to leave the county for a state-of-the-art procedure,” says Health First Cardiothoracic Surgeon Matthew Campbell, who performed Urenovich’s procedure, and who founded the Valve Clinic and started TAVR services.

“It is minimally invasive; patients typically go home the next day or two, and the best part about it is they’re able to get back to their ordinary life and do exactly what they want to do.”

During the procedure, a catheter is placed in the leg holding a fully collapsible replacement valve. It makes its way to the heart, where it is placed from inside the damaged blood vessel. When the new valve expands, it pushes the old valve leaflets out of the way – and the material in the replacement valve takes over the job of regulating blood flow.

“Ours is the first structural heart program on the coast between Jacksonville and South Florida. Performing 1,000 TAVR procedures is an achievement that displays our deep experience and specialized expertise. We are making better health easier,” he said.

“We take care of our community here in Brevard County because our community has demonstrated so much support for Holmes Regional and Health First.”

Wedding Moments

Recently, Urenovich, 83, returned to show her doctor and two Interventional Cardiologists pictures of her dressed in her finest, arm-in-arm with her four children, smiling throughout a celebration that appeared just out of reach a few months earlier.

“They did a good job scheduling my TAVR procedure, making sure it happened in time, and I’m amazed with the end result,” Urenovich said.

Campbell says the efficiency with which Urenovich moved through the pre-operative phases, into surgery and then into recovery and home again is a credit to the nurses and administrators who “make such a very efficient process possible and smooth – that’s how we’re able to have completed more than 1,000 successful procedures.”

 

Word’s gotten around, says Dr. Dinesh Patel, an Interventional Cardiologist who teams up with Dr. Campbell on many of the procedures at the Valve Clinic.

The success of any program like this is “a solid infrastructure” that gains the respect of not only patients but the referring doctors.

“Because it starts with the people who send us a patient, the physicians who have the trust in us – not just in Brevard County but surrounding counties.”

Continually refining valve replacement procedures has quickened the pace, a delight for patients but better evidence still of low complication rates.

Urenovich, 83, was asked to rate the importance of making her son’s wedding. On a scale from 1 to 10, she gave it a 12.

“I am very happy that I have this hospital this close, that I can depend on it and have good results. It’s a blessing.”

Health First Interventional Cardiologist Thierry Momplaisir said he hopes patients like Barbara Urenovich can help spread the word in this community and beyond – the Heart Center at Holmes Regional Medical Center was created to treat cardiological conditions, from stenosis to heart failure.

“There’s a lot that medicine and technology can do to help prevent the worst outcomes – and there’s a lot the patients can do for themselves.”

 To see more news coverage of Health First, visit HF.org/news.

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