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in technology have provided new tools, allowing structural cardiologists to expand their arsenals of treatments for patients with structural heart issues." Today's patients have more treatment options, and now those options are available nearby. "The structural cardiology team at Via Christi allows patients to get the highest quality of care while remaining close to home, with people they know, in a hospital they've trusted for years," says Darrell Youngman, DO, cardiologist and Division Chair of Inpatient Services and the cardio- vascular service line for Via Christi. "This program is run with the highest levels of interaction and cooperation between the various specialists involved." TAVR Treatment for Severe Aortic Stenosis About 500,000 people in the United States have severe aortic stenosis, a heart valve disease. Because this disease usually occurs in people older than 75, some patients are identified as inoperable or at high risk for problems if they were to undergo open-heart surgery. Without treatment — replacement of the diseased aortic valve — severe aortic stenosis will shorten life. But these inoperable or high-risk patients now have new hope with a noninvasive procedure, TAVR, which delivers a replacement heart valve in a procedure similar to a common heart catheterization procedure. The replacement valve is delivered either through an arter y in the leg (transfemoral) or an incision between the ribs and through the bottom of the heart (transapical). These procedures require the highest-quality technology for success. TAVR is the first of the new procedures performed by the structural heart team in the hybrid operating room at Via Christi "Getting approved to perform LARIAT procedures at Via Christi is testimony to how the structural cardiology program is viewed nationwide. The team has really put Wichita on the national radar for new technologies related to structural cardiology." — Bassem Chehab, MD, Medical Director of the structural heart program at Via Christi Construction of the hybrid operating room at Via Christi Hospital St. Francis is an integral piece of the structural cardiology program's success in bringing new treatment procedures to Wichita. M D N E W S . CO M ■ MD NEWS Greater Kansas | 9