Life is just beginning at 84

The most modern procedure for aortic valve replacement without incision – TAVI – is available in Ukraine!
Thanks to the professionalism of the doctors of the Clinic for Adults of our Center, innovative operations are performed on patients of any age.
Last week, another operation of transfemoral aortic valve implantation (TAVI) was performed on an 84-year-old woman from Kyiv, who loves travels and actively follows world events with her laptop.
A life-threatening heart failure – aortic stenosis – made our heroine forget about the opportunity to live fully, dream about travels and admire the world around her.
But two hours after heart surgery, the patient is sharing her impressions and dreams of walking in the evenings, family meetings and, of course, travels.
Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) is one of the most innovative heart surgeries. Through a small incision in the leg, the “new” arterial valve is implanted in place of patient’s own valve, which for one reason or another requires replacement.
“The patient was inoperable, the risk to life was more than 50%. We did everything necessary so that the woman could quickly rehabilitate and be discharged from the hospital on the fourth day.
TAVI is an advanced technology that allows people at high surgical risk, especially older people (> 75 years old), to continue a full and quality life after surgery. Now in the Clinic for Adults of our Center, we constantly perform mini-invasive operations: bypass surgery, replacement and plastics of heart valves. Such modern surgical approaches allow us to save the lives of patients of different ages with various comorbidities. At the same time, both the operation time itself and the rehabilitation period are significantly reduced, which, of course, is an important factor for the patient”, says Glib Yemets, cardiac surgeon, specialist in minimally invasive cardiac surgery and transcatheter technologies at the Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery (Clinics for adults).
By the way, getting a doctor’s permission and license to perform the TAVI procedure is a rather complicated and painstaking process. Glib Yemets is one of the few specialists in the CIS countries, who has confirmed high professional competence and compliance with international standards.
TAVI is an alternative to open surgery and has many advantages:

  • low level of trauma (due to the absence of a surgical incision);
  • minimum rehabilitation period (the patient is discharged within 3 days);
  • in a pandemic – minimizing hospital stay and postoperative period.

A high-quality and high-quality life at any age: from birth to longevity is the value that the doctors of the Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery adhere to.