“Three physicians at Mount Sinai Heart became the first team in the United States to perform a percutaneous implantation of a new device that replaces a diseased aortic heart valve, an advance that provides a viable treatment for patients too elderly or infirm to undergo open heart surgery. The device, called the Medtronic CoreValve Transcatheter Aortic Valve Prosthesis, treats severe aortic stenosis with a catheter-based technology that does not require an incision in the chest or the use of a heart-lung machine.

David H. Adams, MD, Marie-Josee and Henry R. Kravis Professor and Chair of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery; Samin K. Sharma, MD, Zena and Michael A. Wiener Professor and Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory; and Annapoorna S. Kini, MD, Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, have begun using the CoreValve system as part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's pivotal clinical trial. Dr. Adams is the trial's national co-principal investigator.”