A press conference by Narayana Multispeciality Hospital, Jessore Road was organized. It was graced by Dr. Auriom Kar (Consultant Interventional Cardiologist), Dr. Kowshik Pal, Dr. Sunandan Sikdar(Consultant Interventional Cardiologist), and Dr. Arunansu Dhole (Consultant Cardiac Surgeon).

The press conference was organized to address the successful performance of TAVI Procedure.

TAVI (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation) is a minimally invasive procedure that replaces a damaged aortic valve with a new one. TAVI approach delivers a fully collapsible replacement valve to the valve side through a catheter, similar to placing a stent in an artery. When the new valve expands, the old valve leaflets are pushed out of the way, and the tissue in the replacement valve takes over the job of regulating blood flow, allowing blood to be ejected more easily.

Given his age and comorbidities, a 78-year-old patient diagnosed with severe aortic stenosis was a very high-risk candidate for Surgical Aortic Valve Replacement, which is now the standard method of Aortic Valve Replacement. As a result, the doctors decided to treat the patient with Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) or Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI), a minimally invasive, yet technically challenging method of aortic valve replacement. It allowed them to operate on the patient under local anesthesia in a bloodless and painless manner, resulting in a hospital stay of only 48 hours.

TAVI/TAVR procedures are still uncommon in the country and state, but they are the most innovative and promising treatment option for patients who are at high risk for open-heart surgery.

Valve replacement usually necessitated an open-heart procedure involving a sternotomy (a surgically opened chest). TAVI can be performed through a very small opening in the femoral artery (large artery in the groyne) known as a transfemoral approach, which requires no surgical incision on the chest and leaves all of the chest bone intact.

An innovative and promising treatment option indeed.

Priyanka Dutta