At age 58, Laura Hosking was unusually young to need a new aortic heart valve. But as a teen, she was treated with extensive chemotherapy and radiation, a therapy that worked to cure her of lymphoma, but left a legacy on her internal organs. In her 40s, shortness of breath sidelined Laura from the activities she loved. She sought the help of Stanford Medicine cardiology, and was diagnosed with aortic stenosis, a narrowing of the aortic valve opening.
Given her complex medical history, the Stanford cardiology team recommended a non-surgical approach to repair her valve—a relatively new, minimally invasive procedure known as transcatheter aortic valve replacement, or TAVR. With TAVR, the new valve is compressed inside a thin catheter and threaded through a blood vessel in the leg up to the aorta. No open surgery or heart-lung bypass, so recovery is quicker.
“TAVR gave me back my life in an immediate and profound way,” said Laura, who was up and walking the day after her procedure. Today, she is able to play golf, clock 10,000 steps a day and volunteer again.

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