Structural Heart Disease Program

Now there’s hope for inoperable or moderate to high-risk heart patients close to home.

Living with a complex heart condition can make you lose heart. For patients who are inoperable or moderate to high-risk, surgery may not be an option. It’s easy to feel like there’s nothing you can do. But now there’s hope. With the first, most comprehensive and the only cardiologist fellowship-trained in Structural Heart Disease Program in the Great Lakes Bay Region, we’re leading the way with emerging, minimally invasive treatment options. So individuals who do not qualify for conventional heart surgery can take heart knowing there are other options that help them improve their quality of life.

Structural Heart Disease Program Services
The Structural Heart Disease Program offers minimally invasive procedures for inoperable or moderate to high-risk heart patients:

• Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) – Individuals with aortic stenosis need an aortic valve replacement. When the aortic valve is not fully open, patients suffer a decrease in blood flow from the heart to the body. While open heart surgery is the ideal treatment for aortic stenosis, 1/3 of patients do not qualify for the surgery. This minimally invasive procedure repairs the narrowing valve by wedging a replacement valve in place, which will expand and push the old valve out of the way.
• TMVIV – Transcatheter mitral valve‐in‐valve implantation (TMVIV) is an option for patients with mitral prosthetic valve dysfunction who are at high risk for surgical valve replacement.
• Watchman – To lower risk for stroke, this device is permanently implanted to close the left atrial appendage (LAA), which is the source for a large majority of stroke-causing blood clots in people with non-valvular atrial fibrillation. The Watchman device helps to prevent the migration of blood clots from the LAA, which will reduce the patient’s risk of stroke.
• TEER – The Transcatheter Edge-to-Edge Repair (TEER) procedure is a minimally invasive technique in which a catheter is used to place a small clip on the edges of a malfunctioning heart valve, effectively closing the gap and restoring its normal function.

In addition, our extraordinary team also provides other structural heart disease procedures including:

• Percutaneous Aortic and Mitral Valvuloplasty – This procedure uses a balloon to expand abnormally narrow heart valves.
• Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO) procedure – This is a catheter-based closure of atrial and ventricular wall defects (commonly known as a “hole” in the heart).
• Atrial Septal Defect (ASD) procedure - A catheter is threaded through a blood vessel in the body up to the heart. A closure device is threaded through the catheter and placed into the ASD (an abnormal "hole" in the wall that separates the top two chambers of the heart).

Structural Heart Disease Team
Our multidisciplinary team of experts consists of cardiologists, interventionalists, cardiac surgeons, anesthetists, nurses, and technicians (cath and electrophysiology lab, echo and surgical). Together, they work to develop a treatment plan customized for every patient to ensure the best outcomes possible.

If you or your loved one is considered inoperable or moderate to high-risk, our expertise and new, emerging minimally invasive options are not only life-changing. They could be lifesaving. Call us at 989.583.4700 to learn more about the Structural Heart Disease Program at Covenant Center for the Heart.