St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital is this month celebrating a decade since the hospital provided its first Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI) procedure – a ground-breaking, minimally invasive heart procedure that has since been used in the treatment of almost 1,400 patients.
Interventional cardiologists, Dr Karl Poon and Dr Alexander Incani, were the first to perform the procedure at St Andrew’s in July 2015, making ours one of the first private hospitals in Queensland to offer the treatment for patients with severe aortic stenosis.
For patients diagnosed with aortic stenosis, a condition which causes narrowing of the aortic valve, the cutting-edge keyhole TAVI procedure can provide an alternative to open-heart surgery.
Inspiring 91-year-old Lois Griffiths marked history as the first St Andrew’s patient to have the procedure, saying at the time she never gave up hope when told she had aortic stenosis and there was no treatment available.
St Andrew’s General Manager, Mairi McNeill, said the anniversary was a proud moment and a chance to reflect on the remarkable impact the procedure has had.
“As we mark 10 years of TAVI at St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital, I’d like to congratulate and thank everyone who has contributed to continually advance our cardiac services,” Mairi said.
“It’s incredible to think about the many people whose lives may have been improved or extended as a result of this innovation in cardiac care, many of whom may have had limited treatment options available to them in decades past,” she said.
Earlier this year, St Andrew’s War Memorial Hospital was named an International Centre of Excellence by the American College of Cardiology, following independent accreditation of the hospital’s cardiac catheterisation program.
In 2023, the program achieved another major milestone with 1,000 TAVI procedures completed.
At St Andrew’s, a multidisciplinary team combining the expertise of interventional cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons, echocardiologists, intensivists, anaesthetists, geriatricians, and other health professionals work together to decide the best treatment plan for each patient and assess whether TAVI is an option.