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Heart & Vascular

Cardiovascular Specialized Procedures

Find a hospital that provides Cardiovascular Specialized Procedures

Intermountain Healthcare utilizes an integrated system approach to deliver the best patient care, consistently and at the lowest appropriate cost. We use the expertise from our hospitals, clinics, and health plan to ensure excellent and consistent care no matter which Intermountain facility you visit.

Find a hospital that provides Cardiovascular Specialized Procedures

Cardiovascular Specialized Procedures

Atrial Septal Defect (ASD) and Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO) Closure
An Atrial Septal Defect, or ASD, is an abnormal hole in the wall of the upper chambers of the heart. This hole means the wall between the right and left upper chambers does not close completely.

Fetuses have an opening (called a foramen ovale) between the upper chambers of the heart that closes naturally soon after birth. If this fails to happen, the result is an open (patent) foramen ovale, or PFO. For either an ASD or a PFO, a cardiac cath lab procedure can be used to close the hole.

How it’s done:

A catheter guides a flexible closure device through a blood vessel into the heart.
Once the device is correctly positioned, it can expand to plug the hole. (Generally speaking, the device works a bit like an umbrella. When collapsed, it is small enough to travel inside your blood vessel. When opened, it covers a larger area.)
When the catheter is withdrawn, this plugging device remains behind to close the hole in the heart. Eventually the device becomes covered with the body’s own tissues.

Heart Transplant
A heart transplant replaces a severely diseased or malformed heart with a new heart from a human organ donor. This procedure is considered for late-stage heart failure after other attempts have failed. Transplantation is a treatment, not a cure, for heart failure. When it is successful, it offers an average 9 years of additional life.
Heart transplantation is an open heart surgery that lasts 4 to 6 hours. During the surgery, a heart-lung bypass machine takes over the work of the heart and lungs. Once the new heart is positioned in the chest and surgically attached to the major vessels, it usually begins to beat on its own and the heart-lung machine can be detached.
Patients considering transplantation should keep in mind that surgery is only one step in the process. Major steps to consider include:

If your healthcare provider thinks you are a candidate for a heart transplant, a transplant team will assess whether you are a good candidate. This requires a series of medical tests.
You are placed on the waiting list for a donor heart. Waiting times vary from days to months, depending on organ availability and your condition.
After your transplant surgery, recovery will take 6 to 8 weeks. Beyond that, you must commit to taking daily medication (immunosuppressants) to prevent rejection of the donor heart and to protect from infections and complications.

Septal Ablation
Septal ablation is used when the septum (wall) that divides the lower chambers of the heart becomes abnormally thick—the procedure corrects the obstruction so that the blood can flow more freely in the heart. In this cardiac cath lab procedure, alcohol is injected into the arteries that feed the septum. This thins the septum, so the heart can work more efficiently.

Ventricular Assist Devices
PVAD
A percutaneous ventricular assist device (PVAD) is a small mechanical pump that provides short-term support for the heart from a few hours up to 15 days. It is typically used to give the heart time to strengthen if a patient has developed heart failure as a result of heart surgery or a heart attack. The PVAD is worn outside the body, and connected to the heart through a vein in the thigh. One benefit of the PVAD is that it can be inserted in the cardiac cath lab.

Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD)
A left ventricular assist device (LVAD) treats heart failure by easing the heart’s workload. An LVAD is a mechanical pump that assumes the work of the left ventricle, the heart’s most important pumping chamber. This allows the heart to rest, while simultaneously supporting the body with normal—or near normal—blood flow. Implanting this device requires open heart surgery.

Levitronix Ventrimag
The Levitronix Centrimag is a blood pump that can support the heart or take over the work of the heart during heart surgeries such as cardiopulmonary bypass, valve repair, or valve replacement. It operates outside the body and is attached to the heart during surgery. The Levitronix Centrimag is also being evaluated in clinical trials as a bridge support for patients whose hearts have gone into shock, while waiting for a transplant or a decision on treatment.