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October 10, 2016 — Francesco Maisano, clinic director at the University Hospital Zurich, recently led a team of cardiac surgeons and cardiologists in for the first time repairing a leaky tricuspid valve using a new catheter technology.

Maisano, who is also director of the Clinic for Cardiovascular Surgery at USZ, co-director of the University Heart Center and professor at the University of Zurich, began using the Cardioband in Switzerland for repair of the mitral valve. Now he and his team have succeeded in an application at a leaky tricuspid a 75-year-old patient. The patient is doing well.

The device has been used previously as a patient-friendly method of repairing a leaking mitral valve in the left heart. It is the minimally invasive alternative to open-heart surgery. Maisano was instrumental in the development of Cardioband, which can be gathered with the help of the leaky valve ring and contracted. For this, the band is placed using a catheter around the valve ring (annulus), and is fixed there by small screws and contracted with a wire, so that the flap closes again tightly.

The tricuspid valve separates the right atrium from the right chamber of the heart. A tricuspid regurgitation, i.e. an insufficient performance of the door, can cause serious symptoms. The backflow of blood into the ventricle and in the veins occur and can cause elevated pressure. This can result in problems in the legs and in the abdomen and liver damage. Also, atrial fibrillation may be associated with the consequences of tricuspid regurgitation. The current treatment of insufficiency of the tricuspid valve consisted of a surgical open-heart surgery using a heart-lung machine.

Maisano explained the advantages of the new Cardioband method: “Since the insufficiency of this heart valve is often created as the result of mitral valve disease, open-heart surgery is often risky surgery. The use of the Cardioband minimally invasive therapy without the use of cardiopulmonary bypass protects the patient and reduces the risk.”

For more information: www.valtechcardio.com