New device at UC Davis helps avoid open heart surgery. Here's how it works

DAVIS - A new device is helping people with heart problems avoid open heart surgery and UC Davis is one of the first facilities in the country to use it.

Active all his life, Gregory Jordain knew something was wrong with his heart.

"When you have [Triscupid regurgitation], it makes you short of breath, so you feel like you don't want to do anything because you're gasping for air," Jordain said.

That was in the 90s after a triple bypass he was good for years, but then.

"In 2020 I started experiencing a lot differently, I was tired, short of breath, couldn't really focus," Jordain said.

The diagnosis was a leaky tricuspid valve. Another surgery was the last thing he wanted.

"I did not want to experience that again. Although I didn't have complications from it, it was just too big of a risk for me to go back and open up my chest again," Jordain said.

Turns out, there was another option. UC Davis Medical Center is the first hospital in the western United States to use something called a TriClip, made by the company Abbot.

"We evaluated this device over the last 3-4 years," said Dr. Gagan Singh with UC Davis Health.

Singh is the director of the structural heart program for UC Davis Health. He said this type of clip has been used for years, but, on other valves of the heart.

"And after a decade of experience of putting these clips on the mitral valve, a bunch of us who do these procedures asked the company, 'Hey why don't you take the same clip but put it on a delivery catheter for the trivalve itself,'" Singh said.

It requires a minimally invasive treatment and is delivered through a vein in the leg. It saves people like Jordain from having to have open heart surgery.

"There's kind of the physical recovery, there's the mental recovery and then there's kind of the emotional recovery after open heart surgery. The problems of it are magnified in a 70-90-year-old," Singh said.

The TriClip has recently been approved by the FDA and only requires one day in the hospital, perfect timing for people like Jordain who are constantly on the go.

"I feel great. I'm back to 85-90% of my capacity. I do everything I was doing previously. I still golf, still workout," Jordain said.

Jordain said he is doing fine, plans to keep staying active, and wants to start traveling more.