Program description

The Rush Valve Clinic offers the most advanced diagnostic and treatment services available for patients with valve disease, including mitral valve regurgitation, mitral stenosis, mitral valve prolapse, pulmonary regurgitation, pulmonary stenosis, right ventricular-pumonary artery conduit dysfunction, aortic insufficiency and aortic valve stenosis. At the clinic, each patient meets with a team of specialists — including an interventional cardiologist, a cardiac surgeon and an echocardiographer — at the same time. Drawing on their wide breadth of experience in surgical and nonsurgical approaches to addressing valve disease, these specialists then develop an individualized treatment plan and present it to the patient on the same day.

Treatment | Diagnosis | Physicians | Resources

Treatments

Physicians at the Rush Valve Clinic offer the full range of treatment options for all types of valve disease, including minimally invasive procedures, during which physicians repair or replace a damaged valve via a catheter. The following are among the treatments available at Rush:

• Medication to reduce the symptoms of valve disease and decrease strain on the heart.
• MitraClip procedure for mitral regurgitation, a minimally invasive procedure used as an alternative to open heart surgery to treat a leaky mitral valve (mitral regurgitation). The tiny clip, which is placed using a catheter, holds the flaps of the mitral valve together to prevent leaking.
• Transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement, a catheter-based procedure used to replace a nonfunctioning conduit or bioprosthetic valve between the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery. Physicians at Rush were the first in the U.S. to perform this procedure.
• Transcatheter aortic valve implantation, an innovative minimally invasive procedure for implanting a new aortic valve in patients with aortic valve stenosis. This procedure is a new option for patients who are not good candidates for traditional surgery or are deemed to be a high surgical risk. Patients who are eligible can receive the valve through a clinical trial.
• Surgery to replace or repair a damaged valve using minimally invasive approaches.
• Valvuloplasty, a procedure in which a large balloon is inserted into the heart through a catheter and is then inflated to open a heart valve that has become narrowed.

Diagnostic services

Rush patients benefit from the latest diagnostic procedures in heart care. In addition to a comprehensive physical examination, physicians at the clinic use a variety of techniques to diagnose valve disease, including the following:

• Echocardiography
• Electrocardiography
• Cardiac catheterization
• Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

State-of-the-art facilities

Many of these procedures take place in the interventional platform of Rush’s new hospital, a space in which surgical, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures are centralized to enable seamless collaboration between specialists and ensure convenience for patients and families. Many procedures are performed in the interventional platform’s state-of-the-art hybrid cardiac suite, which couples the benefits ofinterventional cardiology with cardiothoracic surgery for critically ill newborns, children and adults. (Read more about the hybrid cardiac suite.)

Clinical trials

Physicians at Rush are involved in clinical trials evaluating new treatment options for patients with valve disease, including medications, devices and minimally invasive procedures. By participating in clinical trials, the valve clinic is able to offer patients the latest advances in treatment before they are widely available. View a list of open clinical trials for valve disease, or call (312) 942-6800 for more information about current trials for which you may be eligible.

Clinical team

• Rami Doukky, MD, cardiac imaging specialist
• Ziyad M. Hijazi, MD, MPH, interventional cardiologist
• Neeraj Jolly, MD, interventional cardiologist
• Clifford Kavinsky, MD, PhD, interventional cardiologist
• Robert J. March, MD, cardiac surgeon
• Jai Raman, MD, PhD, cardiac surgeon
• Jeffrey Snell, MD, interventional cardiologist
• Jeffrey S. Soble, MD, cardiac imaging specialist

Patient and family resources

• Heart information center
• Heart valve disease video FAQ
• Posts about heart health from the Rush InPerson blog

Quality of care

Rush University Medical Center has one primary goal: offering patients the highest possible quality of care. As part of this effort, we continually evaluate our care processes and clinical outcomes. See the resulting data and learn more about our quality measures.