Kathleen Pearce, 70, suffered from aortic valve stenosis, a potentially lethal heart valve disease that narrowed her aortic valve, causing progressively painful symptoms.

“I couldn’t walk 10 steps before having to stop and catch my breath,” says the wife, mother and grandmother of five.

Her doctor sent her to VGH and the team led by world-renowned structural and interventional cardiologist Dr. David Wood.

In September, Dr. Wood and his team performed transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) surgery on Kathleen. TAVR is an innovative minimally invasive approach to replacing diseased aortic valves.

Kathleen was kept awake while her new valve was implanted through an artery in her leg in less than 20 minutes. Normally, high risk patients are in hospital for a week or more after conventional surgery and take several months to recover.

Dr. Wood and his team performed TAVR on Kathleen using the Vancouver 3M (Multidisciplinary, Multimodality, but Minimalist) Approach. With 3M, select patients are awake when they undergo TAVR, are typically walking four hours later, and are safely discharged home the following day.

“It was easier than going to the dentist,” says Kathleen. The next day she attended a concert and has since gone shopping and exercised. “It’s like I have a whole new life.”

Kathleen is beyond grateful to Dr. Wood for performing this innovative procedure and stresses, “He’s nothing short of amazing. This was life changing.”

Dr. Wood and the team at the Centre for Heart Valve Innovation know donor support is critical if they are going to help make TAVR the default strategy for most patients with aortic valve disease. “Without donor support, it will be difficult for us to lead in this pioneering field.”

Help give heart patients hope for their future.