Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Elizabeth Taylor To Get E-Valve Mitral Valve Clip

As reported by E! online, it seems Elizabeth Taylor has significant mitral regurgitation (a leaky mitral valve) and will be undergoing an experimental Evalve MitraClip® mitral valve clipping procedure:
The two-time Oscar winner announced on Twitter today that she's checking into a hospital for a heart procedure. But don't worry—she predicts she'll be back on her feet in no time.

"[The procedure is] very new and involves repairing my leaky valve using a clip device, without open heart surgery, so that my heart will function better," tweeted Taylor.

"Any prayers you happen to have lying around I would dearly appreciate. I'll let you know when it's all over. Love you, Elizabeth."
The initial EVEREST I trial reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on the first 24 patients receiving the device showed four 30-day major adverse events: partial clip detachment in three patients, who underwent elective valve surgery, and one patient with post-procedure stroke that resolved at one month. Three additional patients had surgery for unresolved MR, leaving 18 patients free from surgery.

More recent data on 107 patients in the US are summarized in a company press report and reported at this year's Transcatheter Cardiovascular Theraputics conference suggest favorable results with seventy-four percent of patients achieved MR reduction to 2+ or less and in 64 percent of these, MR reduction to 1+ was achieved. Additionally, there were no cases of clip embolization or procedural mortality reported. Kaplan-Meier freedom from surgery was 88.5%, 83.2% and 76.3% at 1, 2 and 3 years, respectively.

Hopefully for Ms. Taylor, things will work just as well for her.

-Wes

Disclosure: I have no commercial interest in the MitraClip device.

Addendum: Early reports suggest she did fine.

2 comments:

  1. My 82 yr old mother had this procedure and experienced great success. No longer on oxygen and back to the way she was 5 years ago.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The mitral valve DOES NOT WORK. Cardiologists should STOP EXPERIMENTING on human beings.

    ReplyDelete

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