A St. Luke’s Heart & Vascular Center team made regional medical history last week when it was first in the area to implant the newest generation of non-surgical aortic heart valves in a patient at St. Luke’s Bethlehem Campus.

St. Luke’s was recently named one of the nation’s 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals by PINC AI and Fortune magazine.

On April 11, the St. Luke’s heart specialist team led by Raymond Durkin, MD, Chairman of the Heart & Vascular Center, and Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery Stephen Olenchock, DO, inserted the Edwards Sapien 3 Ultra RESILIA catheter-based aortic heart valve into the failing valve of a 76-year-old patient, during a procedure that lasted less than 20 minutes.

The aortic valve is the gateway out of the heart supplying the body with oxygen-rich blood. As the valve leaflets - which normally open and close with each heartbeat - become stiffened with calcium deposits due to advanced age, heart disease or other causes, blood flow is hindered, which causes dangerous symptoms like shortness of breath and possibly heart failure.