Heart Valve Clinic
Asante Rogue Regional is home to the region’s first, foremost and only comprehensive heart program. Since 1973, we have guided patients through more than 20,500 open heart surgeries, over 18,500 coronary interventions (i.e., stents and balloon angioplasties) and more than 11,900 pacemakers and implantable defibrillators. This experience and expertise has led IBM's Watson Health to name Asante Rogue Regional one of the Top 50 Cardiovascular Hospitals in the nation.
Cardiothoracic surgeons at Asante Rogue Regional and cardiologists at Southern Oregon Cardiology provide state-of-the-art care for our patients with valvular heart disease. The Heart Valve Clinic is a collaborative, multidisciplinary team that includes cardiothoracic surgeons, interventional cardiologists, a cardiologist with expertise in advanced imaging and the valve program coordinator. Patients are evaluated in a single clinic visit.
Saving hearts without opening chests
Asante Rogue Regional is one of the few hospitals in Oregon to offer the latest procedures for repairing heart valves without opening chests. Patients can get back to normal life within just a few days.
Valve repair: Success Stories
Mitral regurgitation repair
MitraClip
Interventional cardiologists use the dime-sized MitraClip to repair a leaky mitral valve. One of four valves in the heart, the mitral lets blood flow from the left atrium to the left ventricle. When the mitral valve no longer works properly, blood can flow backward into the left atrium, making your heart work harder to supply your body with oxygen-filled blood.
Cardiologists guide a catheter up a vein in the leg, cross the upper chambers of the heart and insert the MitraClip over the valve, which acts much like a clothespin to stop the leakage.
Mitral valve-in-valve repair
For those at high risk for open-heart surgery
For people who have a surgical mitral valve that has become blocked or leaky over time, this procedure allows cardiologists to use a catheter inserted in the leg to access the heart and place a new valve within the old one.
Aortic valve replacement (TAVR) 
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement
This procedure is a minimally invasive alternative to open-heart surgery for high-risk patients with aortic valve disease. The aortic valve is located between the main pumping chamber of your heart and the main artery to your body. When it doesn't work properly, patients can experience shortness of breath, heart murmurs, chest pain and other symptoms. Left untreated, it can be lethal.
Cardiologists guide a catheter inserted through a small incision in the leg or chest to the heart and insert a new valve into the old one, much like a stent.
To help decide whether transcatheter aortic valve replacement is right for you, click here.
Edwards SAPIEN XT Transfemoral Procedure Animation
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) using a transfemoral approach to the aortic valve. Animation by Edwards Lifesciences (tm) LLC, Irvine, CA
