A team of interventional cardiologists at the Rigshopitalet University Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark have become the first to implant a new bioprosthetic mitral valve into a person via a transcatheter approach. They implanted the valve as a compassionate treatment into an 86-year-old male suffering from severe mitral regurgitation (MR 4+). Currently, percutaneous valve replacement, increasingly done in the aortic and pulmonary valves, but has remained elusive for the mitral valve. The valve used in Denmark was the CardiAQ prosthesis (CardiAQ Valve Technologies, Winchester, MA). The company says its technology, which it describes as “self-conforming and self-anchoring,” is designed to make nonsurgical mitral heart valve replacement a future alternative to open heart surgical replacement and repair.
If it proves successful, this could boost the entire field of percutaneous options for the treatment of mitral-valve disease.
