Innovating for Health

AUBMC Leads with Lebanon’s First TriClip Procedure

2024 Issue No. 2

Curing diseases is often based on treatment or surgical intervention. But what do you do when a conventional health procedure is deemed as risky as the disease itself? AUBMC’s multidisciplinary team at the Structural Heart Program proved that it was time for innovation and performed the first TriClip procedure in Lebanon and the Levant.

Tricuspid regurgitation (TR) is a heart dysfunction of improper closure of the flaps of the tricuspid valve, which controls the flow of blood from the heart’s right atrium (top chamber) to the right ventricle (bottom chamber). Moderate or severe TR can lead to irreversible damage to heart muscle tissue and adverse outcomes such as exhaustion, irregular heartbeats, and poor quality of life. It is predictive of poor survival if left untreated.

Despite these findings, few patients with significant TR undergo surgery, opting to live with the perils of poor heart function. The reason is that surgical repair and replacement procedure options have yielded significant pre- and postoperative complications, leading to mortality and morbidity risks.

The TriClip procedure first emerged in 2020 as an alternative to treat patients with symptomatic severe TR. Replacing the need for open heart surgery, the TriClip procedure delivers a clip device to the heart through the femoral vein in the leg to clasp together a portion of the leaflets—or flaps of tissue—of the tricuspid valve, thus reducing the backflow of blood.

At AUBMC, a team led by Dr. Fadi Sawaya, director of the Structural Heart Program, and Dr. Walid Gharzuddin, director of the Non-Invasive Cardiac Lab, successfully performed their first TriClip procedure in January on a 60-year-old woman with severe TR and a history of several comorbidities and mitral valve disease.

“This innovative transcatheter therapy offers new hope to patients with tricuspid regurgitation, providing a minimally invasive solution to a condition that once required open heart surgery,” says Dr. Sawaya.

From performing the first open heart surgery in the region in 1958 to the first TriClip procedure in 2024, AUBMC continues to bring world-class healthcare to the people of Lebanon and the wider region. True to its mission, it pioneers revolutionary interventions that combine expertise with cutting-edge technology.

Dr. Sawaya says, “We are constantly striving to push the boundaries of what is possible in cardiac care, and our journey in advancing cardiac interventions continues. We remain committed to pioneering technologies that improve patient outcomes and the quality of life.”