And now, get a new heart valve in 90 minutes sans open-heart surgery

The Rush University Medical Center in Washington has successfully experimented with a novel heart valve replacement option for patients with aortic stenosis who are at high-risk or are considered inoperable.

"This breakthrough technology could save the lives of thousands of patients with heart valve disease who have no other therapeutic options," said Dr Ziyad Hijazi, director of the Rush Center for Congenital and Structural Heart Disease and interventional cardiologist of the Rush Valve Clinic.

Rush University Medical Center offers the new treatment through a multi-center, phase IIb cohort study called the PARTNER II (Placement of AoRTic traNscathetER valves) trial, the centre said in a release.

Insertion of the transcatheter valve take about 90 minutes, compared with four to six hours for open-heart surgery where the surgeon has to cut through the breastbone, stop the heart, remove the valve and replace it.

While open-heart surgery requires a two- to three-month recovery period, the transcatheter procedure would require only a few days.

"The primary objective of the trial is to reduce death, major stroke and repeat hospitalisation in these patients," said Hijazi.