Dr. Neil Fam inserted the Abbott Laboratories device into an 86-year old patient with severe mitral regurgitation. Because of the patient’s age, traditional surgery to repair her mitral valve was not an option.
Mitral valve regurgitation occurs when blood leaks backwards through the mitral valve when the left ventricle contracts, according to the American Heart Association. If gone untreated, leaves can cause increased blood pressure in the left atrium and can increase pressure in pulmonary veins. If severe, the pressure can result in fluid build-up in the lungs.
Fam guided a MitraClip device into the heart to clamp the leaky valve. The catheter is usually inserted through the femoral vein in the leg, but a blockage prevented that.
“We were locked out, blocked from accessing her heart,” said Fam, interventional cardiologist and director of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, in a press release.
Using Baylis Medical Company’s SupraCross RF, Fam guided a MitraClip device through the jugular vein of his patient, which is a more direct route to the heart, and repaired the leaking mitral valve.
The tip of the sheath on theSupraCross RF makes it steerable and the wire delivers radio frequency energy to puncture the septum of the heart. Physicians can position the system to reach more challenging angles in a more precise and controlled environment.
The patient had no complications post operation and was able to be discharged. Follow up appointments also showed that the patient had no further heart failure after the surgery.
The results of the procedure were published in the journal Eurointervention.
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