Aortic valve replacement can be a life-saving operation. It can be done with open-heart surgery or through a relatively new and minimally invasive procedure called transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) or transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). But with either approach, the risk of a stroke is always a concern. When replacing a diseased aortic valve with a prosthetic one, there is always a chance that a piece of valve tissue, calcification, or blood clot can escape the valve and make its way to the brain. If any debris blocks one of the brains blood vessels, the result is a stroke.
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