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TAVI

Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation

The aortic valve opens when the heart contracts to allow blood to pass from the left ventricle into the aorta, the body’s main artery. When this valve begins to get narrow due to age and other factors, it restricts blood flow creating a serious and potentially life-threatening condition that is called aortic stenosis. TAVI is the ideal procedure for patients with severe and symptomatic aortic stenosis.

Performed on a beating heart, the minimally invasive procedure does not require cardio-pulmonary bypass. Nor does it require “blood thinners” like mechanical heart valves usually do. Instead, revolutionary valves, constructed from a combination of metal mesh and animal tissue, are delivered via a thin wire (catheter) usually through the femoral artery and then expanded in place. Following the procedure, a patient can be home and active in less than 5 days!

This therapy can be used in 90-year-olds with severely calcified & damaged valves, bicuspid or 2-leaflet aortic valves, aortic valves with metallic surgically implanted mitral valves nearby, surgically replaced aortic valves that have failed and even patients with heavily leaking aortic valves.

Initially the TAVI procedure was only approved for those with prohibitive risk for open heart surgery, namely the inoperable cases that were condemned to a miserable quality of life and high mortality. Then the US FDA rapidly realised its potential to save lives and approved the procedure for high risk cases and intermediate risk patients as well.

He has also conducted several training sessions and live case demonstrations, to train doctors from over 20 countries in this non-surgical form of valve replacement. He recently trained the team which was the start of Sri Lanka’s 1st TAVI programme, helping implant the country’s first few valves.

  • Dr. Sai Satish was among the first few professionals to get trained in TAVI when it was introduced in 2008.
  • India the caught on and adopted it as well. Today Dr. Sai Satish has performed over 250 TAVI Procedures.
  • Dr. Sai Satish is also faculty & senior consultant interventional cardiologist at the Gottsegen Institute of Cardiology, Budapest, Hungary, one of the best TAVI training centers in the world.
  • He has started Transcatheter Aortic Valve Programs in over 30 new centres in and outside India.
  • He is also one amongst a handful across the sub-continent who is licensed to implant these valves independently.

He is also invited routinely as faculty at several international conferences as an expert in the field. He has also proctored TAVI in over 10 countries so far.