There was an 80 year old woman who broke her hip due to slipping. The doctor required her to go through a surgery to repair the injury & this was her only hope to come back to her normal life. This old lady lived all by herself & she was still able to clean her house, cook her food and shop for her things. She had a case of aortic stenosis & it was reported to have been in existence for more than ten years already and it is not subject to operation anymore. Thru the ECG, she has discovered that the present aortic valve surface area of 0.4cm placed her in the high risk level and thus it give her the risk of around 40% to develop complications in the next years to come. There was no way then to know if her congestive heart failure is because of the aortic Stenosis or cardiac pathology.

How a patient will be a candidate for surgery

According to the cardiologist handling her case, she was in a high risk level and she is a candidate for surgery. It was said that her aortic stenosis was considered as inoperable and that is based on her history and there was no other assessment taken after that. Even if the patient has just said that she is interested to go through anything just to make her feel better and her hip be returned to normal, she was also hoping that the process that she will undergo will make her go back to her normal life once again. She suddenly started to hallucinate and lost her ability to decide for herself. During the family gathering, the family has just decided that they will not let their grandmom go through the surgery and she will only be given treatment for comfort only.

Modern treatment available

It was clear enough that the old lady’s decision is merely based in her aortic valve pathology and congestive heart failure. There was no one to discuss with her the newest treatment available these days and that is the transcatheter aortic valve implantation, which is the newest option that may improve her chances of surviving the hip operation. The inoperable word has been with her for the past ten years and she believed it though in spite of the availability of the newest medical technology these days available for aortic valve repair in patients who are actually candidates for open heart surgery. But of course, this newest breakthrough is not meant for anyone and there are also complications associated with it and that should be identified as an option if there is still a hope.

The options of the patient

In terms of new treatment options with the patients, there is a need to assess their data and try to show new photos of the risks, but of course how can they determine the percentage of risk that is acceptable to them if they don’t even know their options? In the case of transcatheter aortic valve repair, the amplified risk of stroke or even valve leak should also be weighed over the outcome that is expected if there is no repair that must be undertaken. Those with this case have fewer chances to live, though the survival is just normal until the signs of angina appear. There are only 50% of the patients who were able to survive in 5 years’ time as soon as the presence of angina shows off.