Rajiv Verma, MD, Director of Pediatric Interventional Cardiology at the Children’s Heart Center at Children’s Hospital of New Jersey (CHNJ) has treated children and adults who have heart defects that are congenital, or present at birth.
Dr. Verma’s experience in correcting these defects includes the use of new devices that are implanted with minimal pain and scarring, thus allowing some patients to avoid open-heart surgery. In fact, he was among the first physicians in New Jersey to use a device called the Amplatzer Septal Occluder System to repair atrial septal defect (ASD), a hole between the two upper chambers, or atria, of the heart.
Today Dr. Verma is lending his vast experience with implantable devices to a study designed to help adult patients with a congenital heart defect known as patent foramen ovale (PFO).
Patent foramen ovale is a small hole between the upper chambers of the heart that is normally present in a developing fetus. This hole should naturally close shortly after birth. If it doesn’t, blood can flow through the hole in either direction, creating a condition known as patent (or “open”) foramen ovale.
Usually no treatment is necessary for a PFO. However, it can become a pathway for blood clots to cross for the right to the left atrium and then cause a stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) in adulthood. Dr. Verma is CHNJ’s principal investigator in a nationwide study to assess the effectiveness of using the Amplatzer occluder device in reducing the recurrence rate of embolic stroke by closing the PFO if it is a suspected pathway of embolic material. Patients enrolled in this study are adults with a previously undiagnosed or untreated PFO who have suffered strokes or TIA of unknown origin despite being on medical treatment.
“We have close to 50 patients enrolled so far, and all of the procedures have been successful with no complications, and as yet, no recurrence of stroke,” Dr. Verma notes.
The ongoing study is coordinated by AGA Medical Corp., makers of the Amplatzer device, following guidelines established by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Newark Beth Israel’s Institutional Review Board.
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