Heart & Vascular News

Cardiac experts perform 500th TAVR procedure – more than any other center in the region.

Barnes-Jewish Hospital, consistently ranked as one of the nation’s best hospitals and heart and vascular centers, was recently honored with two prestigious awards: the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Foundation’s NDCR ACTION Registry®–Get With the Guidelines™ (GWTG) Platinum Performance Achievement Award and the American Heart Association’s (AHA) 2014 Resuscitation Quality Achievement Award.

Specialists at the Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Heart & Vascular Center are the first in the region to add a second valve option for use in the transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedure, making it possible to treat a wider range of patients.

Heart specialists at the Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Heart & Vascular Center were the first in Missouri to implant a subcutaneous implantable cardioverter defibrillator (S-ICD) into a patient during a procedure that took place on Friday, Nov. 29. Unlike the traditional ICD used to help treat arrhythmias such as tachycardia, the S-ICD does not place wires inside the heart or blood vessels.

A device approved today by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to treat leaky mitral valves was first used in this region as part of a clinical trial at the Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Heart & Vascular Center. This new non-surgical alternative for mitral valve repair, which involves using a small clip, offers hope to the more than four million Americans with leaky mitral valves.