The Heart and Vascular Interventional Lab Completes First Tricuspid Valve Repair Procedure 

The Department of Medicine congratulates the Heart and Vascular Interventional Lab on its first tricuspid valve repair procedure. The TriClip transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (TEER) system is the first-of-its-kind device to repair a leaky tricuspid valve (known as tricuspid regurgitation or TR). Structural heart coordinators Ashleigh Poptic, NP, and Nicole Majkut, PA, alongside Vaikom Mahadevan, MD, chief and professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, and the Cath Lab team, successfully completed the procedure, and the patient was discharged the following morning.  

“Until recently for patients with tricuspid valve disease, the only option was open cardiac surgery which can be of higher risk in many of these patients who are elderly with multiple other health issues,” said Dr. Mahadevan. “The Triclip Tricuspid Repair Program was started at UMass in November 2024 by the structural cardiac team including myself and Dr. Bryon Gentile. The initial procedures have been very successful, and this is the first and only of its kind program currently in Central and Western Massachusetts. This procedure offers a great option for our patients to get cutting-edge therapy at UMass. With this program, UMass now has established programs for transcatheter treatment for diseases of all the four cardiac valves.”