Key Procedures:

• Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI): Angioplasty and stenting for acute myocardial infarction (STEMI) and stable coronary disease. Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI), commonly called angioplasty and stenting, is the emergency or planned procedure that opens a blocked heart artery to restore blood flow fast. If you’re having a heart attack (STEMI), we rush you to the cath lab, thread a thin tube through your wrist or groin up to the blockage, inflate a tiny balloon to squash the plaque against the artery wall, and then place a small metal mesh tube (stent) that acts like scaffolding to keep the artery wide open — often saving heart muscle and your life within minutes. For stable coronary disease (when blockages cause chest pain or shortness of breath but aren’t an immediate emergency), we do the same thing on a scheduled basis to relieve symptoms and lower future heart-attack risk. Most people are awake but relaxed, the whole thing takes 30–90 minutes, and you usually go home the next day feeling dramatically better — it’s one of modern medicine’s biggest lifesavers.

• Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR/TAVI): Valve replacement via groin artery for severe aortic stenosis.Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR or TAVI) is a remarkable way to replace a stiff, narrowed aortic valve without open-heart surgery. Instead of cracking open the chest, we make a small puncture in the groin artery (sometimes the chest wall), slide a compressed new valve — made of cow or pig tissue mounted on a metal frame — all the way up to the heart inside a thin tube, then pop it open like an umbrella right inside your old faulty valve. The new valve instantly starts working, blood flows freely again, and most people feel dramatically better within days. It’s done while you’re asleep or heavily sedated, takes about 1–2 hours, and you’re usually home in 1–3 days — a true game-changer for severe aortic stenosis patients who were once considered too high-risk for traditional surgery. At our affiliated hospital, Dr. Sossou and/or his trusted partners performs TAVR as part of the structural heart team, bringing this life-saving technology to our West Orange families.

• MitraClip & transcatheter mitral repair: Edge-to-edge repair for severe mitral regurgitation in high-surgical-risk patients. MitraClip (and similar transcatheter mitral repairs) is a minimally-invasive way to fix a severely leaky mitral valve without open-heart surgery. When the mitral valve no longer closes properly and blood flows backward into the lungs — causing shortness of breath, fatigue, and heart failure — we go in through a small puncture in the groin vein, guide a thin tube up to the heart, and place one or more tiny clips that grab the two valve leaflets and pull them together like a clothespin. This instantly reduces the leak, lets the heart pump more efficiently, and often turns symptoms around dramatically. The procedure is done under anesthesia with echo guidance, takes about 1–2 hours, and most patients go home in 1–2 days. It’s a lifesaver for people who are too high-risk or too frail for traditional valve surgery. At our affiliated hospital, Dr. Sossou and/or his trusted partners are credentialed to perform MitraClip and other transcatheter mitral repairs.

• Left Atrial Appendage Occlusion (Watchman, Amulet): Stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation patients who cannot take long-term anticoagulation. Left Atrial Appendage Occlusion (using devices like Watchman or Amulet) is a one-time procedure that dramatically lowers stroke risk in people with atrial fibrillation who can’t safely take blood thinners forever. In AFib, blood can stagnate in a small pocket of the left atrium called the appendage and form clots that shoot to the brain; for most people we prevent this with lifelong anticoagulants, but when bleeding risk is too high (history of brain bleed, falls, stomach ulcers, etc.), we simply seal that pocket shut. We make a tiny puncture in the groin vein, guide a collapsible umbrella- or cork-shaped device up to the heart, and deploy it to plug the appendage permanently — no more clot source. Done under anesthesia with echo guidance, it takes about an hour, you go home the next day, and after 6 weeks of short-term blood thinner the device is fully covered by your own tissue and you’re usually off anticoagulants for life. It’s a true “fix-it-and-forget-it” stroke-prevention solution, and Dr. Sossou and/or his trusted partners implants both Watchman and Amulet devices at our partner hospital.

• Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO) / ASD closure: Device closure to prevent paradoxical embolism and cryptogenic stroke. Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO) and Atrial Septal Defect (ASD) closure is a simple, minimally-invasive procedure that fixes a small hole in the wall between the heart’s upper chambers to prevent “paradoxical” strokes. Everyone is born with this hole (PFO) — it usually closes naturally after birth, but in about 1 in 4 adults it stays open like a tiny flap door; in ASD the hole is larger and never closed. Normally it causes no trouble, but sometimes a blood clot from the legs can sneak through this door, bypass the lungs (where clots are filtered out), and travel straight to the brain, causing a cryptogenic (“mystery”) stroke — especially in younger people. We fix it by making a small puncture in the groin vein, guiding a thin tube to the heart, and deploying a tiny double-disc device (like two umbrellas) that plugs the hole permanently; the whole thing takes about an hour, you’re lightly sedated, go home the same or next day, and after a few months your own tissue grows over it — no more stroke risk from this cause. It’s a true “lunchtime fix” that has prevented thousands of repeat strokes, and Dr. Sossou and/or his trusted partners performs PFO and ASD closures at our partner hospital.

• Chronic Total Occlusion (CTO) PCI: Complex recanalization of completely blocked coronary arteries. Chronic Total Occlusion (CTO) PCI is a highly specialized “unblocking” procedure for coronary arteries that have been 100% clogged — often for months or years — causing chest pain, fatigue, or limiting what patients can do. While many cardiologists simply treat these as “end of the road,” a CTO specialist like Dr. Sossou uses advanced wires, micro-catheters, and techniques (sometimes entering from both wrists and groin at once) to carefully drill a new channel through or around the old blockage, then place one or more stents to restore normal blood flow. It’s longer and more complex than regular angioplasty (1–3 hours), but when successful it can eliminate symptoms, improve heart function, and avoid bypass surgery. Most patients go home the next day feeling dramatically better, and because only a small percentage of interventionalists are trained to do it safely and successfully, Dr. Sossou and/or his trusted partners are proud to offer true CTO expertise right here for our West Orange families at our partner hospital.

• Alcohol septal ablation: Non-surgical reduction of septal thickness in hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM). Alcohol septal ablation is a minimally-invasive alternative to open-heart surgery for patients with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM), where the heart wall between the ventricles grows too thick and blocks blood flow out of the heart, causing shortness of breath, chest pain, or fainting. Instead of cutting out the extra muscle, we go in through the wrist or groin artery (just like a regular angiogram), identify the exact tiny artery that feeds the thickened muscle, and inject a small amount of pure alcohol. This tiny, controlled “heart attack” thins the thickened wall over the next few weeks, opens the outflow path, dramatically relieves symptoms, and often eliminates the need for lifelong beta-blockers or surgery. The procedure takes about an hour, you stay in the hospital 1–2 days, and most people feel a huge difference within weeks — a true lifesaver pioneered for HOCM patients who want to avoid the saw and the long recovery of traditional septal myectomy. Dr. Sossou and/or his trusted partners perform alcohol septal ablation at our partner hospital for our West Orange patients.

• Balloon valvuloplasty: Treatment of mitral, aortic, or pulmonic stenosis using inflatable balloons.Balloon valvuloplasty is a quick, non-surgical way to open a stiff, narrowed heart valve (most often mitral, aortic, or pulmonic) that is choking blood flow and causing shortness of breath, fatigue, or fainting. We thread a thin tube from the groin (or sometimes arm) up to the tight valve, position a special balloon across it, and inflate it for a few seconds — the balloon literally cracks open the stuck leaflets or stretches the ring so blood can flow normally again. There’s no chest incision, no heart-lung machine, and most people feel a big improvement right away. The procedure takes 30–90 minutes, you’re lightly sedated or asleep, and you usually go home the next day. It’s especially helpful for younger patients with rheumatic mitral stenosis, certain congenital pulmonic stenosis, or older patients who are too high-risk for valve surgery. Dr. Sossou and/or his trusted partners perform balloon valvuloplasty at our partner hospital for our West Orange patients.