A crew of interventional cardiologists from Henry Ford Health’s Center for Structural Heart Disease lately turned the primary within the United States and the Western Hemisphere to restore a coronary heart valve with extreme tricuspid regurgitation in a affected person utilizing the investigational Okay-Clip™ Transvascular Tricuspid Repair System.

Pedro Engel Gonzalez, M.D., Brian O’Neill, M.D., and William O’Neill, M.D., carried out the 60-minute, minimally invasive, nonsurgical process by way of a small incision within the affected person’s neck with a catheter to succeed in the failing coronary heart and positioned the Okay-Clip in a strategic goal location across the dilated tricuspid valve. Under the steerage of real-time 3D imaging and 4D modeling, the Okay-Clip system shrinks the diseased space across the tricuspid valve to assist the affected person’s valve to operate higher.

The Okay-Clip system is an rising know-how and promising technique for treating choose sufferers with extreme tricuspid regurgitation for whom conventional surgical procedure poses too excessive of a threat.”

Dr. Pedro Engel Gonzalez, M.D., Henry Ford Health

Frank Konjarevich, an 85-year-old retired shoe and purse restore enterprise proprietor from the Detroit space, is the primary to obtain the brand new know-how. “He is one of many patients referred to Henry Ford Health who desperately needed intervention for severe tricuspid regurgitation, who had no other viable options through existing treatments available in the U.S.,” stated Dr. Engel Gonzalez.

Tricuspid regurgitation is a kind of coronary heart valve illness that happens when the valve’s flaps now not shut correctly. The tricuspid valve controls the circulation of blood from the guts’s proper atrium (prime chamber of the guts) to the precise ventricle (backside chamber of the guts). If left untreated, the situation can result in an enlarged coronary heart, signs of fatigue, belly bloating, mind fog, decrease extremity swelling, shortness of breath, and in the end coronary heart failure.

Dee Dee Wang, M.D., director of Structural Heart Imaging at Henry Ford Health, engineered a 3D printed mannequin of Konjarevich’s coronary heart to offer a life-size roadmap to assist information the intraprocedural imaging and exact placement of the Okay-Clip. The printed mannequin coronary heart was not less than thrice greater than a standard coronary heart, a transparent signal of the severity of Konjarevich’s situation.

It is estimated that 1.6 million individuals within the U.S. and three million in Europe live with tricuspid regurgitation which is attributable to cardiomyopathies, left-sided coronary heart failure, or lung illness. The five-year survival fee with extreme tricuspid regurgitation and coronary heart failure with diminished ejection fraction (HFrEF) is estimated at lower than 40 p.c.

For a yr, Konjarevich had been affected by progressively worsening shortness of breath, fatigue and decrease extremity swelling. Henry Ford physicians found Konjarevich had each leaky mitral and tricuspid coronary heart valve points, which wanted to be corrected in sequence.

Normally, the mitral and tricuspid valve could be handled on the similar time with open coronary heart surgical procedure, nevertheless Konjarevich’s prior coronary heart interventions, medical circumstances and weak point made him too excessive threat for surgical procedure. That is the place Henry Ford’s Structural Heart crew, specializing in minimally invasive transcatheter coronary heart procedures, stepped up.

“We were able to repair his leaky mitral valve and then searched worldwide for options to treat his leaky tricuspid valve,” stated Dr. Brian O’Neill.

“It was a painless procedure, and I was up and around the next morning like nothing ever happened,” stated Konjarevich. “The Henry Ford team was remarkable in everything they did for me.”

The Okay-Clip process is carried out below common anesthesia and after a couple of hours from waking up, the affected person will be strolling round. In Konjarevich’s case, he was capable of go residence the next day.

“I’m so proud of him to be so brave,” stated Diane Tapp, Konjarevich’s daughter. “He is feeling so much better, and his improvement was almost immediately noticeable by family and friends.”

“Mr. Konjarevich’s leaky valve has improved after the K-Clip procedure and the leakage amount has been significantly reduced,” stated Dr. William O’Neill. “At Henry Ford Health’s Center for Structural Heart Disease, we do whatever we can to help find solutions for patients with complex heart conditions.”

Tapp hopes her father’s pioneering process will assist unfold the phrase to others to succeed in out to Henry Ford Health’s Center for Structural Heart Disease to discover therapy choices which may be obtainable for his or her coronary heart illness.