Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement

Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement
Medical science is an everchanging world with new revolutionary procedures being
created every day. One of the revolutionary procedures is the Transcatheter Aortic Valve
Replacement, or TAVR. This revolutionary procedure was performed as an alternative to surgical
aortic valve replacement (SAVR) otherwise known as open heart surgery. This procedure is used
when clients with aortic stenosis become symptomatic and have a higher risk of complications of
open-heart surgery (The Mayo Clinic, 2020). This procedure is usually performed by a surgical
team or catheterization team. This team usually consists of an interdisciplinary make up of
healthcare professionals all working to complete the procedure in an organized fashion to lessen
the risks of complications for the patient.
How TAVR Works
TAVR is used under general anesthesia where an incision is placed in the femoral artery
and a catheter is inserted into the artery. Following the insertion, the catheter is fed all the way
into the ventricle past the aortic valve. Once in position, a prosthetic valve is placed to manage
the aortic valve stenosis (The Mayo Clinic, 2020). The catheter is then retracted, and the incision
is closed this moves the client in into the recovery phase where they are monitored for
complications. According to Fang et al. (2019), TAVR is rapidly becoming the go to treatment
for patients with high-risk and inoperable severe symptomatic aortic stenosis. Though high-risk
clients are usually the ones to receive the TAVR over SAVR. Low to intermediate risk clients
have a similar outcome as clients with high-risk with TAVR versus SAVR (Fang et al., 2019).
Though this treatment is reserved for the high-risk population, recent studies such as Fang et al.
(2019) have challenged the current guidelines suggesting that SAVR should be the main
treatment modality of low-risk to intermediate-risk population.