Transcatheter Pulmonary Valve Replacement (TPVR)

As the only children’s hospital outside of Chicago to offer this innovative approach to replace the pulmonary valve without requiring patients to undergo open-heart surgery, Children’s Hospital of Illinois continues to offer the latest advancement in the care of patients with congenital heart disease.

Children’s Hospital of Illinois, located at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, is the first downstate Illinois hospital – and one of only 90 centers in the world – to offer Melody Valve implantation

The Melody Valve has represented a giant advancement in prosthetic valve treatment. In addition to a significant difference in invasiveness, hospital stays are dramatically shortened. Used in Europe since 2000, the Melody Valve was FDA approved in 2015 for general use in the U.S. The intermediate follow-up from patients who have received the valve has been extremely positive.

The SAPIEN XT valve received FDA approval in 2016, offering a new option to patients who previously did not qualify for TPVR. Using these approaches, most patients require only one overnight stay versus two to five days after open-heart surgery. More importantly, most are able to return to normal activities quickly after surgery, usually within days versus weeks. Patients undergoing these procedures also experience improvement of exercise tolerance, some almost immediately after the intervention.

Our team continues to advance efforts with new approaches to valve replacement as they become available.