Reducing waitlists for patients with heart valve disease

The Montreal Heart Institute Foundation announces the opening of the MHI’s Heart Valve Centre, a large-scale medical and scientific endeavour that aims to become a national hub of expertise. As a result, the new Centre will enable the MHI to double the number of patients with valve disease it can treat by 2028. The goal is to become a Canadian leader of heart valve disease and rank one of the world’s top ten most advanced centres in this quickly evolving field. 

“This new centre for highly specialized care represents a major advance in how valve disease is treated. It also perfectly embodies our vision to make medical excellence accessible to patients both here and abroad. It’s a cutting-edge centre that will allow us to save more lives,” said Dr. Peter Guerra, Head of Specialized Medicine at the MHI.

Heart valve disease affects 1 in 40 Canadians and is a significant cause of heart failure, morbidity, and mortality. Unfortunately, heart valve disease will become more prevalent as the population continues to age. It is estimated that by 2040, 1.5 million Canadians aged 65 and over will be living with heart valve disease.

Over the past few years, percutaneous valve therapies have transformed the way these pathologies are treated. These procedures do not require open-heart surgery or general anaesthesia. Patients recover more quickly, experience less pain, need less medication, and require shorter hospital stays. These safe approaches are making treatments accessible to more patients while lessening the burden on the health care system. 

The MHI recently recruited Dr. Ralph Stephan von Bardeleben a physician renowned for his in-depth expertise in the clinical, research, and educational aspects of minimally invasive valve therapies. His clinical experience is simply unmatched; Dr. von Bardeleben has performed a record number of percutaneous mitral and tricuspid procedures. The MHI hired Dr. von Bardeleben as part of a strategy to reaffirm its expertise in valve therapies and become a world-class centre. An objective the MHI is already on the way to achieving. In fact, in only one week, the MHI’s teams carried out mitral and tricuspid procedures in 23 patients in a single operating room. A record in North America. The MHI also aims to each year carry out 1,000 percutaneous aortic valve replacements (+100%) and 400 percutaneous mitral and tricuspid procedures (+300%), for a total of 1,400 valve procedures — a figure that would place it alongside the most advanced health institutions in Europe.

This ambitious goal was made possible thanks to the MHI Foundation’s pledge to invest more than $5 million to set up operating rooms, acquire simulation and modelling equipment, and deploy research and education projects.