Due to increasing life expectancy, more and more people worldwide are suffering from a heart valve defect. The reasons for this are mainly a  narrowed, calcified aortic valve or an insufficiency of the mitral or tricuspid valve. Patients with these conditions can nowadays benefit from minimally invasive heart valve intervention. The Mainz University Medical Center is one of the  leading centers in the field of minimally invasive heart valve therapy, both nationally and internationally. The need for such an intervention, which has increased tremendously in recent years, has prompted the Department of Cardiology to establish a new Heart Valve Unit. This was officially presented to the public on April 17, 2018. The advantage: All relevant steps in the course of a heart valve implantation - from patient admission to planning of the procedure, intermediate care after heart valve implantation up to the discharge of patients – all measures take place on one ward.

The establishment of the Heart Valve Unit (HVU) is the response to the rapidly growing need for heart valve implantation," says Univ.-Prof. Dr. Thomas Münzel, Director of Cardiology I, Department of Cardiology at the Mainz University Medical Center. "These patients are usually old and have serious comorbidities that require intensive monitoring, especially after the procedure. To my knowledge, it is the first unit of this kind and I am convinced that it will be a role model for Germany and the rest of the world. This model will go international soon," comments Münzel.

"Minimally invasive patients may be promptly transferred to the Heart Valve Unit after catheter-assisted surgery with light numbness or general anesthesia," says Ralph Stephan von Bardeleben, Senior Physician Interventional Heart Valve Therapy with focus on mitral and tricuspid valve interventions in the Department of Cardiology at the University Medical Center Mainz. "In addition, unlike other centers, we treat almost all heart valves minimally invasively, which has led to a significant increase in implantation numbers. We expect more than 700 catheter-assisted heart valve interventions this year alone."

His colleague, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Eberhard Schulz, who is responsible for the  transcutaneous aortic valve implantation program (TAVI),  also holding a professorship in Interventional Heart Valve Therapy at the Cardiology Center, adds: "Staying in an intensive care unit after the heart valve implantation is no longer compulsory because the Heart Valve Unit has eight intermediate care beds to supervise these patients. The framework conditions offered by a heart valve unit are therefore ideal for optimally caring for patients after heart valve implantation.

"Our patients will primarily benefit from the new Heart Valve Unit. They do not need to be relocated multiple times within the clinic and they will always be supported by the same experienced team throughout their entire stay," says the Chief Executive Officer and Medical Director of the University Medical Center Mainz, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Norbert Pfeiffer. "We are particularly proud of the great expertise of our heart valve specialists."

Caption: Together they presented today the new HVU (from left to right): The Chief Medical Officer Univ.-Prof. Dr. Norbert Pfeiffer, the director of cardiology I in the centre of cardiology Univ.-Prof. Dr. Thomas Münzel, the chief oft he HVU Dr. Thomas Jansen, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Eberhard Schulz and Dr. Ralph Stephan von Bardeleben.

Using of the foto is free of charge (with the details of origin): Thomas Böhm (Universitätsmedizin Mainz)

contact
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Thomas Münzel
Director of cardiology I in the centre of cardiology
university medical center
phone 06131 17-5737
E-Mail: tmuenzel@uni-mainz.de

presscontact
Oliver Kreft, Corporate Communications University Medical Center Mainz, Phone 06131  17-7424, Fax 06131  17-3496, E-Mail:  pr@unimedizin-mainz.de