Some people suffering from a life-threatening heart condition known as severe aortic stenosis could benefit from an experimental treatment that avoids open-heart surgery to replace the aortic valve, a new study indicates.
As many as 1.5 million Americans have aortic stenosis, a progressive narrowing of the aortic valve that prevents blood from being pumped from the heart to the body and brain. About 300,000 of these people have a sufficiently severe condition as to require an artificial replacement. But open-heart surgery can be too risky for about one out of three of these patients, many of whom are elderly. For them, there is currently no effective treatment.
The experimental therapy, developed by Edwards Lifesciences Corp., of Irvine, Calif., is designed to place a new aortic valve in position in the heart without major surgery. The replacement valve is attached to a catheter, which is threaded through blood vessels until it reaches the heart.