Award winning MonashHeart research shows valve repositioning is safe for cardiac patients

MonashHeart’s Dr Hashrul Rashid, recently recognised with a Monash Health Award for “Improving Healthcare through Clinical Research”, is congratulated as the only trainee doctor and Monash University research student to win a Monash Health Award.

Dr Rashid’s winning project was part of his PhD entitled “Diseases of the Aorto-Ventricular Interface and Valvular Therapeutics: Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) and the role of Multi-Detector CT in improving clinical outcomes". 

“MonashHEART has been a pioneer in the field of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), a novel method to treat severe aortic valve disease percutaneously (rather than open heart surgery) and is also a world-leader in cardiac CT,” said Dr Rashid, a cardiology registrar at MonashHeart and graduate research student in the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health (SCS).

“I decided to combine these two MonashHeart strengths and looked at how we can improve clinical outcomes in TAVR procedures with this imaging modality.”

Dr Rashid examined the clinical outcomes of valve repositioning with a next-generation TAVR device, the Lotus Valve system.

“This device is unique as it allows complete valve repositionability to improve its deployment accuracy, which isn't possible with first-generation TAVR devices.”

“Though the benefit of a repositionable valve is clear (improved accuracy, less valve complications), the safety of valve repositioning was unclear (theoretical risk of stroke due to dislodged calcified debris),” Dr Rashid said.

“For the first time, our study has demonstrated that valve repositioning does not lead to harmful complications.”

“In fact, there was a trend towards reduced pacemaker rates, which was a positive outcome, and in addition to this, our complication rates were similar or even better than the landmark clinical trials, showcasing our expertise in this field.”

Dr Rashid presented this project at the TCT Asia Pacific, the largest interventional cardiology conference in this region, and was awarded the TCTAP 2016 Best Abstract Award for his work.  His research was also published in the prestigious Journal of Cardiology earlier this year.

Dr Rashid is supervised by Professor James Cameron and Associate Professor Arthur Nasis at the Monash Cardiovascular Research Centre and he thanks them and his MonashHeart colleagues for their guidance and advice throughout his research and clinical career.