Things are progressing more rapidly than on my first dance with valve replacement. I will have the inevitable heart cath this week and next week a CT Scan before the 2nd valve replacement later this month. Things have changed quite a lot in this past decade. For one, I'm now a candidate for TAVR. My Cardiologist's plan is to put a Medtronics Core Valve into the ring of my 23 mm Edwards Bovine Magna. He wants to use a slightly larger Core Valve so his plan is to "fracture" <boy, that's a difficult thing to think about> to fracture the ceramic ring of the Magna and insert a 26 mm porcine Core. He assures me he has done this many times and it works well.
Other things are afoot, however, in that there has been some surprising work done that may help everyone with a tissue valve in danger of calcification. Several groups studying various and sundry other things have come to find that a mutated gene [NOTCH1] may be the source or at least major contributor to valve calcification. The mutated form of NOTCH1 produces an amount of a binding protein that can be as much as 50 times normal. Many of the individuals identified with a super abundance of the binding protein have calcified heart valves. A group at Vanderbilt University came across this while studying a new drug (actually a monoclonal antibody) that they hope to market for people with rheumatoid arthritis. In the course of their research, they found that their "drug" shuts down the NOTCH1 so they had to follow the trail of bred crumbs to see what happens next and realized that the drug may prevent calcification. So its possible within a few years that, through this bit of serendipity, a drug could be available to help preserve our tissue valves.
And once again, thanks for your support.
Other things are afoot, however, in that there has been some surprising work done that may help everyone with a tissue valve in danger of calcification. Several groups studying various and sundry other things have come to find that a mutated gene [NOTCH1] may be the source or at least major contributor to valve calcification. The mutated form of NOTCH1 produces an amount of a binding protein that can be as much as 50 times normal. Many of the individuals identified with a super abundance of the binding protein have calcified heart valves. A group at Vanderbilt University came across this while studying a new drug (actually a monoclonal antibody) that they hope to market for people with rheumatoid arthritis. In the course of their research, they found that their "drug" shuts down the NOTCH1 so they had to follow the trail of bred crumbs to see what happens next and realized that the drug may prevent calcification. So its possible within a few years that, through this bit of serendipity, a drug could be available to help preserve our tissue valves.
And once again, thanks for your support.
