Due to the importance that the TAVR technique is gaining, we are going to dedicate a section of the website to explain interesting information about it, to bring this important advance to the entire public.
As we saw in the article ‘What are the heart valves and what are they for?’, the aortic valve is located at the exit of the left ventricle (between it and the aorta) and its function is to help all the blood that the heart pumps to the organs and tissues of the body to leave the heart without problems and not reenter it in a retrograde way.
As we will see in more detail in future articles, aortic valve stenosis is a problem that consists of narrowing the orifice of this valve, which generates a series of symptoms, such as dyspnea (feeling of shortness of breath) and chest pain, and can cause irreversible heart problems or even death.
Traditionally, the treatment of aortic stenosis consisted of removing it and implanting an artificial valve, with the heart stopped and extracorporeal circulation (aortic valve replacement).
However, a few years ago a technique was designed by which the artificial valve can be inserted through a catheter, all without stopping the heart or needing to completely section the sternum (as in conventional surgery) or use extracorporeal circulation.
What does TAVR mean?
From the initials of its name in English: Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation, it was decided to call TAVR the transcatheter implantation of the aortic valve.
Through this technique, therefore, an artificial aortic valve can be implanted guided through a catheter introduced by puncturing an artery (femoral, axillary, aorta) or by the tip of the heart (apical route).
Which TAVR route is the best?
There is no route that is superior to the others, but it depends on the patient’s conditions (quality of the arteries, pathological history, previous surgical interventions, arterial anatomy, etc.). The decision is made by the cardiology and cardiovascular surgery team, individualizing each case based on the data mentioned above and the results of complementary tests (especially thoracoabdominal angioCT).
In future articles, we will delve more deeply into the knowledge and developments of this technique.
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