{"id":42802,"date":"2025-11-19T10:38:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T15:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/?p=42802"},"modified":"2025-11-20T13:30:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T18:30:14","slug":"tavr-in-tavr-in-savr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2025\/11\/19\/tavr-in-tavr-in-savr\/","title":{"rendered":"Cathleen Can Breathe Again After TAVR-in-TAVR-in-SAVR"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lifetime management of heart valve disease continues to be a critical topic in our community.\u00a0 The fact is… We are living longer.\u00a0 As a result, many patients may need multiple procedures throughout their lives — especially patients born with congenital defects.<\/p>\n

To this point, I have been trading emails with Cathleen DeWitt Weed, a patient who has had three open-heart, surgical aortic valve replacements (SAVR). Cathleen had her first surgery when she was 19 years old. In addition, Cathleen also needed a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) inside her third SAVR.<\/p>\n

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\"CathleenCathleen With Dr. Alfredo Trento<\/p>\n

 
\nRecently, Cathleen was struggling to breathe due to her failing TAVR.\u00a0 So, Cathleen went to the elite cardiac team of Dr. Alfredo Trento<\/a> and Dr. Raj Makkar<\/a> at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles to get a TAVR-in-TAVR-in-SAVR.
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Cathleen Says…<\/h2>\n

Given Cathleen’s ongoing support of heart valve disease patients in our Community<\/a>, she gave me permission to share a few insightful emails that Cathleen sent me.<\/p>\n

As Cathleen prepared for her TAVR-in-TAVR-in-SAVR, she wrote to me, “Hi Adam,\u00a0 I\u2019m about to have a TAVR-in-TAVR-in-SAVR by Dr. Raj Makkar at Cedars-Sinai<\/a> next month unless Dr. Trento decides to open me up. My surgery is scheduled but I am meeting with both doctors tomorrow to go over the last-minute details. They are also planning on doing the new \u2018ShortCut\u2019 leaflet cutting technique. I\u2019ll keep you updated!”<\/p>\n

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\"CathleenCathleen After TAVR-in-TAVR-in-SAVR<\/p>\n

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As shown above, Cathleen looked great after this unique procedure was performed by Dr. Raj Makkar<\/a> and his team. So you know, Dr. Raj Makkar is an interventional cardiologist.\u00a0 If you are unfamiliar with that type of doctor, Dr. Makkar uses tiny catheters to replace or repair diseased heart valves.\u00a0 You can learn all about interventional cardiology in this video I filmed with Dr. Makkar.<\/p>\n

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