The specialists in ‘Heart and Brain’ applied a rare method of transcatheter aortic valve implantation

The team says that with this new step, the high-tech hospital complex already has all the valves available for transcatheter implantation. This allows for the most suitable valve to be selected for each patient according to their anatomy

Aortic stenosis is a disease in which a narrowing of the valve, which is located at the outlet of the heart, develops. Until recently, the only method of treatment for this valvular malformation was surgery. For several years, as an alternative for high-risk patients, non-operative transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has been used, which is performed through a small opening in a peripheral blood vessel. This method is routinely applied in ‘Heart and Brain’ Burgas and Pleven.

In TAVI, two basic types of valves are implanted – self-expanding and balloon release. So far, valves of the first type have been used, but in the last three patients a new type of balloon-release valve has been implanted.

The interventions were performed by a multidisciplinary team including the invasive cardiologists Dr. Plamen Penchev and Dr. Krasimir Trifonov, as well as the cardiac surgeons Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vladimir Kornovski and Dr. Petar Petrov. One of the leading European specialists in this field, Dr. Daniel Unic from the University Hospital “Dubrava” in Zagreb, Croatia, was also involved as a consultant.

The full article is available here in Bulgarian.