Overall capabilities recognized through the unrivaled experience on TAVI procedures with more than 1,300 cases and the educational treatment environment

▲ Professor Seung-Jung Park(center) and Professor Duk-Woo Park(right) performing TAVI

Asan Medical Center (AMC) Heart Institute has been recently designated as Asia’s one and only Teaching Center of Excellence for TAVI (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation) that can offer training programs to international medical professionals from abroad. This designation was made in recognition of AMC Heart Institution’s unrivaled TAVI performance as well as its world-class training capabilities.

Edward Lifesciences, a US-based global medical device manufacturer for cardiac stent, prosthetic valve, etc. recently announced that AMC has been named as the TAVI Teaching Center of Excellence in high appreciation of its TAVI experience, clinical outcomes, and training capacity.

Now, AMC is qualified to manage, supervise, and educate on every aspect of TAVI procedure including diagnostic approaches and treatment processes to global hospitals and medical professionals on their initial performance of TAVI.

In the past, the TAVI Teaching Centers of Excellence were all hospitals in the U.S. and Europe. However, this year, hospitals in the Asia-Pacific region, AMC in South Korea and St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital in Australia, have been designated for the first time in history.

TAVI Training Centers of Excellence are classified into different specialties depending on the institution’s experience on cardiac procedures and characteristics. AMC has been classified to specialize in ‘Minimalist TAVI’ characterized by the absence of general anesthesia, minimizing the patient burden, and ‘CT Imaging & Screening’ which involves image-based procedures.

Requirements to be selected as a TAVI Training Center of Excellence are quite challenging to be met. The hospital should have sufficient experience of TAVI procedure, patients with severity or diverse cases, and procedural success rate with low incidence of complications after 30 days of the procedure.

In addition to TAVI performance, medical professionals in the relevant fields such as Cardiology and Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery should be qualified ‘Proctors’ with capabilities for TAVI training, management, and supervision to conduct 1:1 training. The teamwork of all the relevant medical professionals is evaluated as well. Lastly, the hospital itself should also have facilities for TAVI treatment and training, and virtual and onsite training arrangements should be available.

AMC Heart Institute was selected as TAVI Training Center of Excellence since all the requirements were met. In addition, AMC also became the first hospital in South Korea to receive accreditation to run the ‘TAVI Benchmark Program’ which builds on the 3M (multidisciplinary, multimodality, but minimalist) TAVI clinical pathway.

The ‘TAVI Benchmark Program’ focuses on minimizing patients’ physical burden by comprehensive consideration of their health conditions to help them quickly recover and return to their ordinary lives.

A number of studies have proven that patients’ treatment performance improves through standardized pre/post management of TAVI procedures, making the protocol a global norm of TAVI, and Edward Lifesciences evaluates and certifies the hospitals where this protocol can be applied.

As such, it is a remarkable achievement of AMC Heart Institute to be designated as a TAVI Training Center of Excellence and certified for implementing the ‘TAVI Benchmark Program,’ building upon the experience of TAVI procedure, pre/post procedure management capabilities, and appropriate capacity for training and treatment.

Since AMC Heart Institute performed the first TAVI procedure in 2010 for the first time in South Korea, it became the first hospital in South Korea as well as Asia to achieve 1,000 case of TAVI procedures in May 2021. Recently, the Institute is performing approximately 250 cases annually, and this number stands out at the global level for as only seven hospitals in the U.S. are able to perform the equal number of cases per year.

Despite that the average age of 1,000 patients is 80 and belong to a high-risk group, the success rate of TAVI has recorded 96% so far and 99% in the recent five years according to a comprehensive assessment of the severe stroke incidence and premature mortality rate in 30 days.

In addition, AMC Heart Institute has been the leader in TAVI research and training by offering TAVI training programs over years for domestic and foreign medical professionals and holding symposiums to share its recent advances.

Asan medical center Cardiology Training (ACT) program has been held on-site 124 times since 2009 when it first started, and 1,437 medical professionals from 37 countries have participated. The program went virtual since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and has been held 15 times so far.

The Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics Asia Pacific (TCTAP) is an international academic conference which was first held by AMC Heart Institute in 1995 and is still supported by the Institute to date. TCTAP is attended by approximately 4,000 cardiology experts from around 50 countries every year online and offline, being quick to share recent advances. TCTAP has served well as a space for cardiovascular intervention training that represents the Asia-Pacific region.

Professor Duk-Woo Park of the Division of Cardiology said, “Designation as the TAVI Training Center of Excellence and accreditation of implementing AMC protocol signify that AMC’s TAVI experience, manpower, and facilities are fully recognized by the relevant experts,” and further said, “In the future, we will continue to offer not only training programs for medical professionals but also provide advice and training on TAVI procedure to fulfill our role as the one and only training Institution in Asia.”

Professor Seung-Jung Park of the Division of Cardiology added, “The experience and knowledge have been accumulated at AMC from introducing TAVI for the first time in South Korea to performing the highest number of procedures in Asia. I wish such experience and knowledge at AMC will be of good use to patients all around the world through this opportunity.”