By Tyrel Linkhorn
As individuals age, their risk for serious heart problems increases.
So too does their risk of going under the knife to repair those defects, leaving some patients feeling as though they’re out of good options to improve their health and restore their quality of life.
For patients with structural heart conditions, including cardiomyopathy and heart valve conditions, The University of Toledo Medical Center has a comprehensive program that offers the best and latest minimally invasive treatments — providing alternatives to patients who can’t undergo traditional surgery.
The latest addition is a non-surgical treatment for mitral valve regurgitation, a common but sometimes severe heart valve condition that often accompanies heart failure.
“We see this condition in many patients who have other, coexisting heart problems who would be at high risk for traditional valve replacement or repair,” said Dr. Samer Khouri, chief of cardiovascular medicine at UTMC. “The MitraClip procedure is not for every patient, but for those patients who we cannot fix their valve surgically, we now have a solution for them.”
The catheter-based MitraClip procedure uses a small, implantable device to reduce or even stop leakage from the heart’s mitral valve, which separates the heart’s left top and bottom chambers.
The valve plays an important role in directing blood out of the heart for distribution throughout the body. If it is impaired, however, blood can flow backwards.
Mild leakage is generally monitored, but moderate to severe mitral valve regurgitation can cause a potentially dangerous heart rhythm disorder called atrial fibrillation, and further stress a heart failure patient’s already weakened heart and lungs.
Dr. George Moukarbel, an interventional cardiologist at UTMC, said if mitral valve regurgitation is caused by a problem in the valve itself, it can often be repaired surgically.
However, if the patient is not a good surgical candidate or if the mitral valve regurgitation is a function of other heart problems, surgery is generally off the table.
“In this situation, when the condition is associated with a weak heart and there is significant leakage, the MitraClip therapy is recommended as an additional therapy after we have exhausted all medical and other treatments,” Moukarbel said. “It’s an established therapy that has been proven to improve quality of life, prolong life and reduce the need for hospitalization for heart failure.”
The procedure is similar to what a patient might experience if having a heart catheterization or a stent placed. The clip procedure is performed under general anesthesia, and patients usually can go home the next day.
“It has excellent outcomes,” Moukarbel said. “It’s well tolerated, patients typically have a one-night stay in the hospital and they are back to near normal baseline function as soon as the next day. This provides our patients with an added option, when appropriate.”
The procedure, which UTMC began performing earlier this summer, complements the hospital’s other cutting-edge structural heart disease therapies.
For patients with severe aortic stenosis, for example, UTMC offers transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Also a non-surgical, catheter-based procedure, TAVR has eliminated the need for open-heart surgery to treat severe aortic stenosis in appropriate patients.
“With the addition of the MitraClip procedure, we now have a fully comprehensive patient-focused structural heart program at UTMC,” Khouri said. “We are a one-stop shop for all heart needs, including coronary disease, structural heart disease and electrophysiology disorders, with everything we do centered on providing individualized heart care for the best outcome of every patient.”
First Published September 28, 2023, 4:00 a.m.