INCHEON — Patients with severe heart valve disease in Incheon and western Gyeonggi Province will no longer have to travel to large hospitals in Seoul for treatment, after a local hospital won approval to perform a complex valve procedure that does not require opening the chest and is covered by national health insurance.
Incheon Sejong Hospital said on the 1st that the Ministry of Health and Welfare has designated it as an institution authorized to perform percutaneous transcatheter mitral valve repair using clips. The hospital received final approval recently after a review of legal requirements covering facilities, specialist staff and equipment.
Mitral regurgitation occurs when the heart valve fails to close completely, allowing blood to flow backward. If it worsens, it can lead to breathing difficulties and heart failure. The problem is that for severe cases involving older patients or those with underlying conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure, the risks of general anesthesia and open-chest surgery are too great. Patients unable to undergo surgery had to accept the burden of traveling to large hospitals in Seoul in search of non-surgical alternatives.
The clip-based mitral valve repair involves inserting a catheter through the femoral vein in the thigh, without cutting open the chest, and using a special clip to draw the valve leaflets together. With less scarring and faster recovery, it is considered a useful treatment option for patients at high surgical risk. The Ministry of Health and Welfare applied national health insurance coverage to the procedure in July, and the designation of regional hub medical institutions now eases both the financial burden on patients and the inconvenience of traveling for care.
Oh Byung-hee, president of Incheon Sejong Hospital, said the designation establishes a foundation for local valve patients who faced high surgical risk because of advanced age or multiple underlying conditions to receive safe treatment close to home. "Through multidisciplinary collaboration between cardiology and thoracic surgery, we will provide the optimal treatment tailored to each patient's condition," the president said.
