Mechanical Heart Valve Sizers… On eBay?

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of shopping on eBay.

Robyn (my wife) is pregnant and I’m finding that most baby/nursery products are 20%-30% cheaper on eBay than at Babies R Us or Right Start.

Earlier today, I was curious… So, I typed “heart valve” into the search field at eBay. Guess what I found?

I could not believe it. I actually found an auction for a complete mechanical heart valve sizer kit! In case you didn’t know, heart valve sizers are used by surgeons during operations to measure the patient’s valve size.

A “valve size measurement” is used by the surgeon to select an appropriate valve replacement or valve repair device (e.g. annuloplasty rings) during the operation.

The heart valve sizers in this eBay auction are specifically for the Edwards aortic valve and Medtronic’s mitral valve annulus bands. However, I did some more searching and found a St. Jude bioprosthetic valve sizer kit for the aortic valve and mitral valve.

It’s amazing what you can find at eBay. Pretty soon, I imagine you will be able to buy stem cell, heart valve replacements online.

Keep on tickin!

About The Author: Adam Pick is a double, heart valve surgery patient and author of The Patient's Guide To Heart Valve Surgery. This unique book integrates clinical research with the personal experiences of 135 former patients to help future patients and their caregivers better understand the problems, the opportunities and the realities of heart valve surgery. To learn more about Adam and his heart valve surgery book, click here.

Additional Blogs About Heart Valve Surgery:

• Top 5 INVISIBLE Things Patients Should Bring To The Hospital
• True or False: All Porcine Valves Fail Within 20 Years?
• Heart Disease And Cardiac Depression… New Findings

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 at 9:15 am and is filed under Heart Valve Surgery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. |  Email This Post .