Loyola University Medical Center opens center to provide treatments for diseased heart valves

Loyola University Medical Center has opened a multidisciplinary Valve Center that offers patients a full range of treatments for diseased heart valves.

Each heart valve patient sees a surgeon and an interventional cardiologist on the same day to determine the safest, most effective and least invasive option. While most patients require open surgery, a growing number are qualifying for less-invasive procedures that are performed with catheters.

"The Valve Center helps to speed up the diagnosis and the plan of care," said Mamdouh Bakhos, MD, chair of the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. "We use everybody's expertise to find the best treatment options."

Fred Leya, MD, medical director, Interventional Cardiology, added: "One of us cannot do everything. We accomplish more as a team."

These are among the conditions treated by the Valve Center:

Aortic Valve Disease. For patients with advanced disease, options include open heart surgery and a new catheter-based system called CoreValve®. Loyola was the only Chicago-area center that participated in a landmark clinical trial of the device, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in March, 2014.

In the catheter-based procedure, an artificial valve is delivered and deployed with a catheter (thin tube). The catheter is inserted into an artery in the groin and guided up to the heart. Once in place, the artificial valve takes over the function of the diseased valve, ensuring that oxygen-rich blood flows into the aorta, the body's main artery.

Mitral Valve Disease. Loyola is a high-volume center that performs complex and high-risk valve repairs, with excellent results. Most patients are treated with surgical mitral valve repair. Loyola also offers a new catheter-based system called MitraClip®. Like CoreValve, the system is much less invasive than open surgery in patients who qualify.

Tricuspid Valve Disease. If neglected, this condition can cause right-sided heart failure, cirrhosis of the liver and low cardiac output. In the vast majority of cases, open surgery can repair the valve, either in combination with mitral valve repair or as a stand-alone procedure.

Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyopathy. In this condition, heart muscle becomes abnormally thick, making it harder for the heart to pump blood. In early-stage disease, medications may be prescribed. In later stages, treatments include ablation, in which a portion of the thickened heart muscle is destroyed by injecting alcohol through a catheter and an open-heart surgery called septal myotomy.

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons has given Loyola its highest three-star rating in 2013 for overall performance in aortic valve repair. Loyola also received two three-star ratings in the aortic valve repair plus coronary artery bypass category. These three-star ratings were for absence of mortality and for overall performance.