When your heart doesn’t go with the flow
Lehigh Valley Heart and Vascular Institute is one of the largest cardiovascular programs in Pennsylvania. That means exceptional care with the highest level of expertise, when you need it most.
When appropriate, our heart surgeons partner with interventional cardiologists to perform minimally invasive procedures that correct valve problems or arrhythmias. This approach, using a small incision, means less scarring and pain, reduced infection risk and a quicker return to activities.
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“Today we can help patients who are much sicker, with much more complex diseases.”– Ronald Freudenberger, MD, Physician in Chief, Lehigh Valley Heart and Vascular Institute |
Valve treatment options
Heart valve treatments at Lehigh Valley Heart and Vascular Institute include:
Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR): To treat aortic stenosis, your doctor places an expandable valve into your heart via a catheter (tiny, hollow tube). Lehigh Valley Heart and Vascular Institute performs a large number of TAVR procedures every year.
MitraClip®: To treat mitral valve regurgitation, or leaking valve, in patients who can’t undergo open-heart surgery, your doctor uses a catheter-based approach to place the device, which clips and closes leaky valves.
Balloon valvuloplasty: To treat narrowed valves, or valve stenosis, your doctor threads a catheter with a balloon on its tip through a blood vessel. The balloon inflates to stretch the valve opening and deflates for removal from the blood vessel.
Septal defect closure: A mesh patch, or plug, is placed over the opening in your heart.
WATCHMAN™ device: This permanently implanted closure device lowers stroke risk in people who have heart rhythm disorders, or arrhythmias.