Heart Valve Care
Roughly five million Americans are diagnosed with heart valve disease each year, Porter Regional Hospital's Center for Cardiovascular Medicine is proud to offer the region's first center dedicated exclusively to the intricacies of treating heart valve disease. Heart valve disease occurs when:
- Heart valve leaflets do not open normally (stenosis), which restricts blood flow, or
- Valves do not close properly (regurgitation), which causes leakage through the valve leaflets.
Symptoms
Symptoms of heart valve disease are very similar to that of coronary disease, such as chest pain, dizziness, shortness of breath, feeling of fatigue, loss of energy, palpitations and edema (particularly in the lower extremities).
Who should be evaluated?
Anyone with these symptoms should be evaluated. While heart valve disease can happen at any age, those older than 60 are at a higher risk for valve diseases such as aortic stenosis.
Our Approach to Valvular Disease
- Board certified and specially trained in advanced diagnostics
- Guideline-based care* using a heart team approach
- Patient Navigator - A specially trained cardiac clinician serves as a link between the patient, heart team and referring physicians.
- Individualized treatment plan developed and communicated within 24 hours
- Ongoing patient follow-up through all stages of care
* 2014 AHA/ACC Guidelines for follow-up care
To learn more about our approach, download our Algorithm of Care document.
Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR)
Porter Regional Hospital is among the first in Northern Indiana to perform transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR).
Now patients suffering from aortic stenosis, or hardening of the heart’s aortic valve, may have the opportunity to have a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) if recommended by their physician. This advanced procedure allows patients to undergo an aortic heart valve replacement without open heart surgery.
The TAVR procedure allows physicians to replace the heart value by accessing the heart through the femoral artery in the thigh. Using image-guided equipment, the new valve is expanded in place of the diseased valve and the catheter is removed. This allows Porter Regional Hospital's heart team physicians to make only a small incision in the upper thigh and a small incision in the chest, as opposed to completely opening up the chest cavity like in open heart surgery. The TAVR procedure typically only takes about two hours, and patients can expect to spend up to two days in the hospital.
Our Heart Valve Team
Jay Shah, M.D., is a Board Certified Diplomate in Adult Comprehensive Echocardiography, as well as Board Certified in Cardiovascular Medicine, Nuclear Cardiology and Internal Medicine. Dr. Shah is the Medical Director of the Heart Valve Center as well as the Medical Director of Cardiac Rehabilitation.
Cardiothoracic Surgeon Walid Khabbaz, M.D., is the Surgical Director of the Heart Valve Center. He is board certified by the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine, Northwest Center for Medical Education.
Bonnie Turman, MS, RN, ACNS-BC, CCRN, is the Patient Navigator for the Heart Valve Center. She has more than 27 years of critical care nursing experience, with eight of those as an Advanced Practice Nurse, and the past three as Porter’s Cardiovascular Clinical Nurse Specialist.
For more information on heart valve disease, contact our Nurse Navigator by email or call (219) 983-5249.