Arizona hospital chosen as one of dozens of hospitals to take part in heart surgery trial

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Every year, 200,000 people are diagnosed with some form of heart failure in the United States.

Recently, Abrazo Heart Hospital in Phoenix was chosen as one of only 44 hospitals in the world to take part in a major trial that could mean life-saving surgeries for several people.

Lavonne Francisco of Payson says she is ready to start feeling better, and that is why she is preparing for heart surgery, at the age of 92.

"The old heart got old," said Francisco. "It just went awry."

Francisco will be undergoing a minimally invasive procedure to place a mitral clip on one of her leaky heart valves.

"Her Mitrial Valve is incompetent," said Dr. Timothy Byrne, a cardiologist at Abrazo Heart Hospital. "There is leaking back into the right atrium, which increases pressure throughout the heart."

Dr. Byrne will be performing the surgery.

"We come in through the vein in the leg. We actually enter the left atrium," said Dr. Byrne.

This is a procedure Dr. Byrne performs about 100 times a year. Soon, however, he will be learning to perform a completely new procedure. It will essentially do the same thing, but instead of repairing the valve, it will completely replace it for patients that suffer from heart failure.

It's part of a trial that Abrazo has been invited to be part of. Only 44 hospitals in the world are taking part, and Abrazo is the only hospital in Arizona to take part.

"The Apollo Trial, which is going to do what I do in surgery, is going to replace that valve which we believe will lengthen your life and improve your quality of life, and those are the two things we want," said Dr. Rick Kirshner, Director of Cardiovascular Surgery. "We now don't have to open your chest up. We now don't have to stop your heart. We can now fix your heart in a very non-invasive fashion."

"We're trying to shorten the recovery, we're trying to improve the outcomes in the least invasive ways possible, and that's really where technology is going today, is the trans-catheter therapies," said Tammy Querrey, Director of Cardiovascular Center of Excellence at Abrazo.

Doctors are excited to bring the trial to Abrazo to help even more patients. Abrazo says it has 16 patients that could potentially benefit from this trial procedure.