5,000 TAVRs

Innovative Heart Procedure Reaches Landmark Status

Emory Heart and Vascular has performed the Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) procedure on 5,000-plus patients. TAVR revolutionized treatment by allowing cardiologists to replace a patient’s impaired aortic valve with a new prosthetic valve via a catheter. Emory was the first in Georgia (and one of the first in the nation) to perform the innovative, minimally invasive procedure in 2007. TAVR is considered a safer and less invasive alternative to open-heart surgery for many aortic stenosis patients, says Vasilis Babaliaros, founder and co-director of the Emory Structural Heart and Valve Center.

Before TAVR, aortic stenosis—a narrowing of the aortic valve opening—was typically a death sentence without surgery.