Cardiologist praises updated design of new TMVR system after historic interventional procedure

Michael Walter | August 26, 2022 | Cardiovascular Business | Interventional Cardiology

The Abbott Cephea transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR) system.

A team of cardiologists and cardiac surgeons in North Carolina has made a bit of interventional cardiology history, becoming just the second group in the world to perform a transcatheter mitral valve replacement (TMVR) using the latest Cephea TMVR system.

The procedure was completed at the Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina, a part of the Atrium Health system.

“With its advanced design, this new valve system is easy to deploy and stays in place. We hope it will prove to be a breakthrough,” Michael Rinaldi, MD, interventional cardiologist and medical director of the structural heart program at Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute, said in a statement. “It holds promise for patients with advanced mitral valve disease, many of whom are elderly and for whom conventional heart surgery is not recommended.”

TMVR procedures using Cephea’s device take approximately 90 minutes to complete. Most patients are mobile by the following day and can expect to go home from the hospital within a few days.

“It takes a coordinated team of specialists with expertise in treating valve diseases to provide the best care for patients with mitral valve disease,” Rinaldi added.

Abbott acquired Cephea in 2019, highlighting the company’s “novel approach to replace the mitral valve.”

Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute celebrates more than 2,000 TAVRs

On Aug. 8, the Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute team announced that it had completed 2,022 transcatheter aortic valve replacements (TAVRs) in the past 10 years.

“Aortic stenosis touches a lot of people's lives, and TAVR can dramatically improve their survival rate,” Rinaldi said at the time in a separate statement. “We've refined this therapy over time to become something that is very safe and effective.”

A two-minute video from Atrium Health details exactly what happens during TAVR. Watch the full video here.

Risk of death increases when TEER patients present with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

TAVR safe and effective for patients presenting with mitral annular calcium

Using a TAVR-like minimalist approach for valve-in-valve TMVR is safe and effective, Cleveland Clinic study confirms

VIDEO: SCAI publishes free how-to textbook on TEER procedures

VIDEO: Transcatheter tricuspid devices likely to gain FDA clearance before new mitral advances

VIDEO: How to build a structural heart program

Michael Walter, Managing Editor

Michael has more than 19 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.

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