For decades, Phil Passen was an active runner and boxer. He jogged dozens of miles per week and regularly took park in competition, all while parenting his 9-year-old daughter and working in finance.
He felt fit and healthy — so when his primary care physician at New York University’s Langone Health told him he had a congenital heart condition that had never been detected before, he was shocked.
“I went for my yearly checkup … and my general physician caught that I had a heart murmur, and it sounded a bit abnormal,” Passen, 53, said. “She referred me for further testing, just as a precautionary thing. They didn’t find anything with a stress test, but then when they started doing the ultrasound, they discovered I had a bicuspid aortic valve.”
A bicuspid aortic valve means that a person has just two valves in their aorta, instead of the typical three. A bicuspid valve can calcify, narrowing the valve and making it harder for blood to flow correctly. The condition is typically corrected surgically, but when Passen’s was first detected in 2016, it wasn’t yet at that stage. Instead, he and his family entered a “wait-and-see” period: Every year, Passen would have regular cardiology checkups to monitor the situation.