Helene Sacks is a spunky, active 80-year-old who has never let her heart slow her down. While she admits exercise isn’t her favorite thing to do, she considers it a necessity and has found a love in playing pickleball. In October 2020, when Sacks just didn’t feel right and found herself uncharacteristically out of breath, she knew it was time to call her doctor.
Sacks was born with an abnormal aortic valve. While a normal aortic valve has three flaps, she was born with a two leaflet, or bicuspid, aortic valve. Bicuspid valves typically deteriorate in middle age, leading to either a blocked or leaking valve which limits the heart’s ability to pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs.
Eleven years ago, Sacks underwent open heart surgery at Suburban Hospital to replace the faulty valve, and she spent several nights recovering in the hospital.
“We knew the replacement valve wouldn’t last forever, so every six months I went to see my cardiologist, and he did an echocardiogram once a year to monitor the valve,” Sacks recalls. “Over time, they started seeing it begin to narrow.”
“I had been feeling fine until that October day, and then I found myself in the emergency room on oxygen and Lasix to remove the fluid that was reducing my ability to breathe.” Sacks had developed congestive heart failure. She was released with instructions to follow up with cardiology to determine her next steps.
Eric Lieberman, M.D., a cardiologist with the Suburban Hospital Structural Heart Disease Program, broke the news to Sacks. She needed another valve replacement, but this time she would be a candidate for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), a minimally invasive alternative to surgery for patients with faulty heart valves.
Patients who have the TAVR procedure are sedated and do not require full general anesthesia which can be a risk for older patients. During the TAVR procedure, a team of interventional cardiologists and cardiac surgeons deliver a catheter-mounted valve from an artery in the groin to the site of the patient’s failing aortic valve. The new TAVR valve is then placed within the diseased aortic valve, pushing the diseased valve to the side and immediately assuming the function of the aortic valve. Typically, patients spend just one night in the hospital and recovery is almost immediate.
“I was so happy not to have open heart surgery again,” Sacks says. “Recovery was so much faster. I did cardiac rehab at Suburban’s wonderful program and signed my name on the wall when I finished. Now my name is on there twice! Thanks to TAVR, I'm alive. I think that sums it all up.”