John Vavalle<\/a>, who are directors of UNC’s TAVR program.<\/p>\nTAVR provides a treatment option for aortic valve replacement for many patients who are not good candidates for conventional open-heart surgery or are too frail to undergo surgery. A surgeon and a cardiologist provide aortic valve replacement via minimally invasive approaches, providing outcomes that are as good as traditional surgical valve replacements and sometimes have better outcomes than traditional surgery.<\/p>\n
The UNC program has introduced innovations to help provide TAVR to patients who may not have been eligible for the procedure before. One advance is the suprasternal TAVR approach, which avoids running a catheter through the groin (typical of most TAVR procedures) and instead threads it directly into the chest. The team has also participated in the roll-out of a next-generation valve that can be repositioned, helping to ensure proper placement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNC’s TAVR team (left to right): John Vavalle, M.D., M.H.S.; Thomas Caranasos, M.D.; Michael Yeung, M.D.; Cassie Ramm, M.S.N. Physicians performed UNC Hospitals’ first Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement procedure in November 2014. In 2016, the number of TAVR cases may be triple the number performed in 2015. Much of that increase can be attributed … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7694,"featured_media":2705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","odd"],"pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUNC's TAVR program grows, with cooperation with cardiologists across state - Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/surgery\/ct\/uncs-tavr-program-grows-with-cooperation-with-cardiologists-across-state-1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UNC's TAVR program grows, with cooperation with cardiologists across state - Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\" UNC’s TAVR team (left to right): John Vavalle, M.D., M.H.S.; Thomas Caranasos, M.D.; Michael Yeung, M.D.; Cassie Ramm, M.S.N. Physicians performed UNC Hospitals’ first Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement procedure in November 2014. In 2016, the number of TAVR cases may be triple the number performed in 2015. 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