100
TAVR
TH
PATH to
SUCCESS
PATIENT!
Last October, Mr. Sharp, who lives outside Temple, Texas, was diagnosed with
severe aortic stenosis. This condition, which he shares with approximately 250,000
other Americans, means that the heart’s aortic valve either cannot open fully or has
narrowed, impeding blood flow from the heart. This was a life-threatening situation,
and was a significant cause of concern for his family. Mr. Sharp was short of breath,
and his lung capacity was less than half of what it should be.
he traditional therapy for
severe aortic stenosis is open
heart surgery. But like many
patients of an advanced age, Mr.
Sharp was considered a poor candidate
for that surgery. So Baylor Scott &
White specialists recommended the
less-invasive TAVR technique, which
was approved by the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) in 2012 and
adopted by specialists at Scott & White
soon after, with great success in helping
many patients like Mr. Sharp. In
November 2014, he became the 100th
patient at Scott & White Memorial
Hospital - Temple to undergo the
procedure. Scott & White in Temple
is the only hospital between Dallas and
Austin that offers this solution.
T
Before the TAVR procedure
became available, patients who were
not surgical candidates went without
therapy and faced reduced quality of
life and a shorter life span. While
many patients with severe aortic
stenosis are older than age 80, some
are too sick or too frail to undergo
traditional open heart surgery. “They
may have had prior heart surgery,
have weak heart function or lung
disease,” says Timothy A. Mixon,
MD, an interventional cardiologist
at Scott & White in Temple. The
TAVR technique has given this patient
population an option. “Patients
benefit significantly from the TAVR
procedure, by relieving shortness of
breath and other symptoms,” says
Chittoor Bhaskar Sai-Sudhakar