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LEFT: The WATCHMAN™—a tiny umbrella-shaped device—relieves the need for blood thinners.
ABOVE: Julia Poole, cardiac patient from Northeast Methodist Hospital, a campus of Methodist
Hospital, shows off her big catch of the day. She is happy to be able to confidently do the things
she loves to do after receiving the WATCHMAN™ device so she no longer fears having a stroke.
An award-winning member of the San Antonio Bass Club, Julia now has more time for fishing.
METHODIST HEART
is the first private hospital in
South Texas to offer heart disease patients a breakthrough
option for reducing stroke risk and an alternative to long-
term use of blood thinners. More than 2 million people in
the U.S. are estimated to be on blood thinners. Not only
is the new technology of the WATCHMAN
TM
Left Atrial
Appendage Closure (LAAC) implant relieving patients of
ongoing finger pricks and medication complications, but
the constant fear of a stroke may be a thing of the past.
“For patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (ab-
normal heartbeat) who are seeking an alternative to
warfarin, the WATCHMAN
TM
implant offers a potentially
life-changing stroke risk treatment option that could free
them from the challenges of long-term warfarin therapy,”
says Jorge Alvarez, MD, who performs the procedure at
Methodist Heart.
BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGY
REDUCES RISK OF STROKE
Long-term blood thinner use no longer needed
LIVING IN FEAR
Julia Poole, 75, has dealt with heart
disease all her life. In 1996 she had open-heart surgery.
Seven years ago she was diagnosed with atrial fibrilla-
tion, a type of irregular heartbeat that can lead to stroke.
“I think I have been on every blood-thinning medica-
tion that there is,” she says. “At this age, fear of a stroke
is always there.”
“Atrial fibrillation (AFib) is a heart condition where
the upper chambers of the heart (atrium) beat too fast
and with irregular rhythm (fibrillation),” explains
Kiran
Jayaram, MD,
cardiac electrophysiologist. “AFib is the
most common cardiac arrhythmia, currently affecting
more than 5 million Americans.”
AFib can cause blood to pool and form clots in the
area of the heart called the LAAC. Twenty percent of all
strokes occur in patients with AFib, and AFib-related
strokes are more frequently fatal and disabling.
The most common treatment to reduce stroke risk in
patients with AFib is blood-thinning warfarin medica-
tion. Unfortunately for Poole, she began experiencing
medication side effects, and when she fell last year, she
lost so much blood that she needed four transfusions.
PUTTING HEART AND MIND AT EASE
Her cardiologist
suggested the WATCHMAN
TM
procedure, which she had
a few months ago. The WATCHMAN
TM
implant closes
off the left atrial appendage to keep harmful blood
clots from the left atrial appendage from entering the
blood stream and causing a stroke. The tiny umbrella-
shaped device is inserted through a catheter in the groin
area.
“It was over before I knew it, and I was only in the
hospital overnight,” Poole says. “Now my heart is at ease
because I don’t have to worry about having a stroke. The
procedure is so new that I find myself educating nurses
about it when I go in for checkups.”
Best of all, now that she is free fromconstant finger pricks
and blood thinner complications, she has lots more time
to go fishing with her grandson. She is an award-winning
member of the San Antonio Bass Club.
nonoperative patients with severe aortic stenosis, a nar-
rowing of the aortic valve that restricts normal blood flow
to the entire body. A resident of Del Rio, Abrego traveled
to Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, the only private
hospital in South Texas performing the procedure.
When he came in for a recent checkup, clinic staff
surprised him and his family with a cake decorated with
the image of Darth Vader to symbolize how the procedure
had taken him from the dark side of heart disease to good
health in just two months.
“He no longer has symptoms of feeling like he can’t
walk or can’t sleep at night because he was so short of
breath,” says
Jorge Alvarez, MD,
who performed the
TAVR procedure on Abrego. “He no longer has chest
pain. In fact, he’s now helping his grandson rebuild cars.”
GENTLER OPTION HELPS MORE PEOPLE
The proce-
dure is an important option for seniors. According to
the National Institutes of Health, severe aortic stenosis
is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in elderly
people. Approximately 290,000 elderly patients with
severe aortic stenosis are TAVR candidates. Nearly
27,000 patients become eligible for TAVR annually.
After the onset of symptoms of severe aortic stenosis,
patients have a survival rate as low as 50 percent at two
years without valve replacement.
Like many elderly people, Abrego was not a good
candidate for conventional valve replacement surgery
because his heart was weak. In the TAVR procedure, a
diseased heart valve can be replaced without having to
open the chest cavity, as in conventional replacement
surgery. The new heart valve is deployed using a catheter
through the femoral artery, through the apex of the heart
or through the ascending aorta. A TAVR procedure lasts
about two hours, compared to the conventional vascular
access approach, which takes four to five hours.
Methodist Heart Hospital’s cardiovascular OR team
celebrated Abrego’s improved health with a cake
featuring Darth Vader, due to his heavy breathing
prior to TAVR.
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