▲ (from the left) Endowed-Chair Professor Seung-Jung Park, Professor Duk-Woo Park, Professor Jung-Min Ahn, and Professor Do-Yoon Kang.

The Asan Medical Center (AMC) Heart Institute has achieved a remarkable milestone, performing 2,000 transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) procedures, an Asia-first achievement. TAVI is a procedure treating severe aortic valve disease in elderly patients without the need for general anesthesia.

Aortic stenosis occurs when the aortic valve, which regulates blood flow from the heart’s left ventricle to the aorta, becomes calcified and stiffened due to aging, narrowing the valve and obstructing blood flow. In the past, open-heart surgery was a conventional treatment option for aortic valve stenosis. Recently, however, it has been commonly treated with TAVI, which involves replacing the aortic valve by inserting an artificial valve via the groin or wrist vessels.

▲ (From the right) Endowed-Chair Professor Seung-Jung Park, Professor Duk-Woo Park, and Professor Jung-Min Ahn are performing the 2000^th TAVI procedure.

In 2010, a team led by Endowed-Chair Professor Seung-Jung Park, Professor Duk-Woo Park, Professor Jung-Min Ahn, and Professor Do-Yoon Kang of the Division of Cardiology performed the first TAVI procedure in South Korea. Despite the high-risk nature of the 2,000 patients who underwent TAVI, with an average age of 80.3 years, the success rate is recorded at 99.7% to date. Demonstrating a significantly low rate of complications, with severe stroke at just 1.9% and early (within 30 days) mortality at only 1.4%, the team’s achievements are comparable to or better than leading global institutions such as Cedars-Sinai and Cleveland Clinic in the U.S., which perform the most TAVI procedures worldwide.

At AMC Heart Institute, medical specialists from the Division of Cardiology and the Department of Thoracic & Cardiovascular Surgery employ a multidisciplinary approach to jointly assess patients each week, providing patient diagnosis and determining whether the patients are candidates for TAVI. They review ultrasound and CT images for thorough imaging analysis to determine the valve size and type before the procedure. Precise and detailed treatment is provided in a dedicated TAVI hybrid operating room equipped with high-tech imaging and surgical equipment. To prevent possible strokes during TAVI, a thrombus-capturing instrument called ‘Sentinel’ is used in high-risk patients so the thrombus detached from vessels does not travel to the brain during the procedure. TAVI helps patients recover safer and faster by employing conscious sedation instead of general anesthesia.