A life-changing heart procedure for a young mum

Unfortunately, things took a difficult turn for Shelley’s family in early 2018, when doctors detected unusual electrical activity in her daughter’s heart during one of their routine tests. To be safe, doctors implanted a loop recorder device in her daughter’s chest to continuously monitor its activity and detect anything suspicious as soon as possible.

Although this provided some comfort for Shelley, as her daughter was being monitored around the clock, she felt concerned about the health of her own heart. Despite her family history, her doctors were not routinely monitoring her heart and so she went to her GP to get it checked – just in case. Luckily, she wasn’t found to have problems with her heart rhythm, but her doctors did find her ascending aorta to be enlarged at the root. She was quite surprised by this, as she explains: “I was a little breathless and tired at times, but didn’t think anything of it. Only later did I find out that this was a symptom of my aortic aneurysm.”

An aortic root aneurysm is caused by the weakening of the walls of the ascending thoracic aorta, causing it to bulge. They often grow slowly and don’t exhibit any symptoms to start, making them difficult to detect. Shelley explains that following her diagnosis, her doctors gave her treatment to control her blood pressure but recommended a ‘watch and wait’ approach before considering surgery to correct her aneurysm. They felt that as the enlargement was relatively small and she didn’t have many symptoms, they could just continue to monitor her condition.

However, she explains: “After doing some online research around aortic aneurysms, my husband and I were naturally quite worried and didn’t want to wait for the worst to happen. We had private family health insurance through his work and thought it best to get a second opinion.”

Soon after, Shelley and her husband met a private consultant cardiologist, Dr Savio D’Souza. Following his assessment, they found her aortic valve to have a moderate-to-severe leak, caused by the aortic root aneurysm. As this could be serious if not corrected, Dr D’Souza referred Shelley to the care of Mr Cesare Quarto, consultant cardiac surgeon at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Specialist Care to help find a surgical solution.

Recommending a valve-sparing procedure

A healthy aortic valve normally closes after blood is pumped out of the heart, to prevent the backflow of blood. As an aortic root aneurysm stretches the aortic valve, it cannot fully close, resulting in blood flowing back into the heart. This valve leakage can lead to a range of complications, including blood clots and organs not receiving enough blood.

The David Procedure is a surgical technique which spares a healthy aortic valve, by replacing the weakened section of the ascending aorta with an artificial tube graft. As the stretching pressure of the aneurysm is removed from the healthy aortic valve after surgery, it can return to its normal function.

“The David Procedure is unfortunately not suitable for every patient with an aortic root aneurysm, as it depends on their aortic valve being healthy. However, it is of enormous benefit if a patient can have it performed – particularly if they are young. Although replacing aortic valves is a safe and suitable option for many, they do come with problems,” explains Mr Quarto.

“Biological tissue valves, which are made with cow, pig or human heart tissue, degenerate over time and need replacing after 10 or 15 years. Mechanical valves – which are an alternative option – last much longer, but patients need to take blood-thinning drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent blood clots. We therefore do what we can to avoid replacing healthy aortic valves.

“Fortunately, Shelley was suitable for the David Procedure and I recommended we complete it as soon as possible, as her condition appeared to be worsening,” explains Mr Quarto.

Shelley had the David Procedure a month later as she didn’t want to wait any longer. After a one-week hospital stay, she was referred to a local cardiac rehabilitation team and has since made a full recovery.

“I feel amazing since the operation,” Shelley explains. “I feel like my life is returning back to normal, which I never believed would be possible. I have started running again and I’m slowly getting back to completing 5km in 30-minutes. I’m just 5 minutes off right now, but I’m sure I’ll get there!

“I have since started treatment to control my Takayasu arteritis after Mr Quarto referred me to a great rheumatologist. I feel at ease now, as my heart is continually being monitored – which is very important when you’re a mum with young children. I cannot recommend the Royal Brompton Hospital enough. Their staff really go beyond the call of duty and nothing is too much trouble,” says Shelley of her experiences.

Mr Quarto adds: “I was incredibly pleased with Shelley’s results and that we managed to capture the underlying cause to help prevent more damage occurring.”