Heart valve breakthrough in Canada
Published: August 22, 2006
Edmonton’s Stollery Children’s Hospital is the first in Western Canada to implement a revolutionary procedure for replacing defective heart valves without invasive surgery.
Keaton Pausch, 13, of Fort St. John, B.C., became the first child in Western Canada to receive the procedure July 18.
“The procedure took a couple of hours in the morning,” Dr. Yashu Coe, a cardiologist and the hospital’s head of pediatrics, said yesterday.
“The patient was up and walking that afternoon and on his way home to British Columbia the next day.”
Coe said traditional open- heart surgery would have the patient in the hospital for a week or more.
“It’s also good for the health system because it frees up a bed so the surgical team can do another open-heart case.”
Coe has successfully performed three such valve replacements on children, and one on an adult, in July.
The procedure — transcatheter pulmonary valve implantation — is used to treat patients with a faulty heart valve.
A new valve, made from a cow’s jugular, is hand-sewn into a stent — a wire mesh frame used to keep blocked blood vessels open — mounted on a balloon catheter and then an X-ray is used to guide it into place.
Pausch says he has undergone surgeries for heart problems since he was 30 hours old.
“I can run now and don’t get tired as easy,” said the amiable aspiring professional soccer player of the results of his latest surgery.
The procedure was first done in London England’s Great Ormond Street hospital followed a few months ago by Toronto’s Sick Kids and Toronto Hospital.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: