OU Health University of Oklahoma Medical Center performed what it said is the second recorded bilateral transcatheter pulmonary valve placement, according to a news release shared with Becker’s. The Oklahoma City-based academic health system added that the milestone positions it among just two medical centers globally to complete the procedure.
Interventional and structural cardiologist Subhrajit Lahiri, MD, led the procedure, which simultaneously placed two Medtronic Harmony valves via catheter into the right- and left-branch pulmonary arteries of a man in his 50s with advanced heart failure, renal failure, diabetes and obesity. Those conditions made both open-heart surgery and standard transcatheter valve replacement prohibitively risky, according to Dr. Lahiri.
“He was told he was not a surgical candidate and not a traditional valve candidate,” Dr. Lahiri said. “Without doing anything, his heart was going to continue enlarging.”
Dr. Lahiri collaborated with Chief of Pediatric Cardiology Arshid Mir, MD, and cardiologist Anjan Shah, MD — both associate professors at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. The team used advanced cardiac CT imaging to build a 3D virtual model of the patient’s anatomy and conduct a simulated implantation before the procedure.
The patient now has two functioning pulmonary valves. Medtronic has invited OU Health physicians to author a formal case report, and cardiologists across the country are contacting the team to learn from the approach.
OU Health estimates roughly 1 in 40 pulmonary valve replacement candidates at its center could benefit from this technique, and plans to offer it to future patients with similar contraindications to conventional surgical or transcatheter options.
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