Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implant (TAVI) is a procedure which replaces the native aortic heart valve without open-heart surgery and without concomitant surgical removal of the failed native valve. It provides percutaneous orthotopic placement of a prosthetic tissue heart valve which is placed within the annulus of the stenotic valve by means of a catheter. TAVI is commonly used in the treatment of high-risk and inoperable patients with severe aortic stenosis. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25489318 .
Figure 1; a healthy valve verses a diseased valve – characterized by fusion of the commissures between the leaflets, with a small central orifice. Medtronic, CoreValve, Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) Platform,…show more content… Aortic stenosis (AS) is a common valvular heart disease. It mainly affects individuals over 60 and the common causation is senile calcification of the valve leaflets. One drawback to the traditional approach to treatment is that many elderly patients who suffer from AS also suffer from several crippling comorbidities, making them unfit for open heart surgery (SAVR) where the chest is opened up so the surgeon can access the heart and the patient is placed on cardiopulmonary bypass. Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is an alternative intervention in such situations, and is quickly proving to be safe and effective for those patients who may have previously been consigned to symptomatic medical therapy.…show more content… One of the reasons is the emergence of minimally invasive techniques like transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and off-pump CABG (beating heart). http://bjcardio.co.uk/2011/02/impact-of-the-ageing-population-on-cardiac-surgery-in-the-uk/
The market potential for a device to provide treatment to heart valve sufferers in indicated in the Elsevier Business Intelligence article which reports that ‘15.6 million people worldwide suffer from rheumatic heart disease with approximately 282,000 new cases each year’ . (http://telavivmedtech.weebly.com/uploads/7/2/5/8/7258084/percutaneous_mitral_startup2012_2.pdf
The problem is huge. Aortic stenosis is the most commonly diagnosed heart valve condition—annually roughly 300,000 patients worldwide, by conservative estimates, have been diagnosed with the disease. About one-third of them are not eligible for open-heart surgery due to age or other comorbidities. More than half of patients di-agnosed with the disease die within two years, according to FDA. http://www.mddionline.com/article/tavr-still-next-big-thing-cardiology
