I recently received a very interesting email from [1] Colin Stewart at the Orange County Registry. In a published report, Colin reviewed the next generation of minimally invasive aortic valve replacement devices from Edwards Lifesciences.

For those of you who are not familiar with the non-invasive technologies being developed for heart repair and heart valve replacement, this is exciting. Instead of [2] aortic valve, a tiny catheter is inserted into an artery to gain access to the heart and then replace (actually smush) the aortic valve.

The benefits are no broken bones and a much faster recovery. Sounds pretty good, right? Here is a picture of two, non-invasive devices developed by Edwards Lifesciences for minimally invasive, aortic valve replacement.

Colin writes, “The device is mounted on a metal frame that is expanded by a balloon into the old valve opening, simply pushing apart the old valve to make room for the new one. The catheter enters the body through a leg artery and from there is snaked upward through the arterial system to the heart… The diameter of the new implant catheters will be about 6 millimeters, or one-quarter of an inch.”

Clinical trials for the new, minimally invasive device is slated for late 2008 in Europe.

If you would like to see Colin explain the transcatheter approach to aortic valve replacement, please watch his video at Youtube.com by clicking [3] here.

I hope this helps explain some of the new technologies being developed for heart valve surgery.

Keep on tickin!

[4] To learn more about Adam’s heart valve surgery book, click here.