Valve Disease: Encouraging Reports on Less Invasive Procedures

Aortic valve replacement is the most common heart valve procedure. It’s usually due to a slowly narrowing of the valve due to a growing blockage or “stenosis.” It is a consistently progressive disease affecting from 2-7% of individuals older than 65 years in the U.S. As bad as that is, it will only get worse as the population ages.

Surgical valve replacement remains the gold standard for treating advanced aortic valve stenosis. However, up to one-third of patients with symptomatic aortic stenosis are not candidates for open surgery. Sometimes, they are simply too old or have other diseases that complicate any open surgical procedure.

For at least 5 years, I have been reporting on percutaneous valve repair or replacement. (If you’re a physician, check ACC’s Cardisource for much of our work on this topic. In particular, look for interviews by or features with Dr. Peter Block of Emory University. He was an early investigator and still one of the recognized U.S. authorities on this topic.) One of the world’s leading investigators is Dr. Helene Eltchaninoff, University of Rouen, France. Hers was the first session I attended this year at AHA and the results continue to be promising. I am scheduled to interview Dr. Eltchaninoff, so we’ll post more details later. (If you are a doctor, you might be interested in seeing Dr. Eltchaninoff's slides at http://bit.ly/2lctg5 )

For now, if you want to know more about valve disease, here is a good summary for patients that we wrote for CardioSmart, a website developed by the American College of Cardiology. http://bit.ly/2Nk1oZ

The Heart of the Matter

For nearly 25 years, I have been covering the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions. I am in Orlando and, starting tomorrow, we'll be providing details and perspectives on dozens of the leading stories from this meeting.

Heart disease and stroke have such a huge impact on health worldwide and this meeting always provides new insights that change the prevention, detection, and management of cardiovascular disease.

We'll link you to additional sources, too, but I think you'll enjoy the opportunity to tap into this huge pipeline of information. (There are thousands of presentations; we'll try to narrow the focus down to the most interesting/influential work being presented here.)

Questions? Just ask, or send via Twitter: RickMcGuire1