What is a TAVI?

Can you explain to me what a TAVI is? Yes so TAVI is an acronym for trans catheter aortic valve implantation and is a minimally invasive treatment for aortic valve disease. The aortic valve is an important valve in your heart ensuring that blood goes around the body in the right direction and with wear and tear and time that valve can become thickened with with restricted motion. And when that valve becomes very narrow, it can start putting pressure on the heart and can result in patients developing symptoms. For example, breathlessness, chest pain, dizziness, and in some occasions, even sudden cardiac catastrophe. And so the aim of treating this diseased valve is to reduce that pressure from the heart to both improve symptoms, but also improve outcomes. The historic treatment for aortic valve disease has been open surgical aortic valve replacement and is still an excellent treatment and is the cornerstone of therapy. However, TAVI is a newer therapy that initially was devised for patients that were not suitable for surgery, either due to anatomy or other medical problems that would make that procedure more risky. But over time with improvements in technology and our experience, TAVI is increasingly regarded as a first line therapy for patients over the age of 75 or with any other comorbidity that would make surgery more challenging or more risky.