Transapical aortic valve implantation (TA-AVI) is a new therapeutic strategy, which has been implemented successfully into clinical practice in several hundred patients suffering symptomatic aortic stenosis and an increase perioperative risk during the past two years. The Edwards SAPIEN™ prosthesis has been used.
The ageing population and growing risk factors have made a significant impact on driving up the number of registered heart failure (HF) cases. Existing pharmacological strategies are improving the survival rates of acute and early-stage HF patients, ironically providing a growing body of patients with progression of the disease to HF.
An interdisciplinary researcher team from the University of Sheffield has developed an ultra-fine, 3-dimensional scaffold to regenerate skin for wound healing. It dissolves after integrating in the wound and might provide a more safer way of treating injuries.
Following 12 years of development, German surgeons and technicians have successfully implanted the world's first vision prosthesis in six blind patients.
The Czech Republic's first cardiac transplant took place in 1984; now about 40 take place annually. The country's first lung transplants began ten years ago; to date around a hundred have been performed by Professor Pavel Pafko and colleagues at the Motol Faculty Hospital, in Prague.
Arrythmogenic remodelling of the left atrium is a common complication of atrial fibrillation, leading to severe haemodynamic disturbances.
By A Chkhotua, T Pantsulaia*, N Maglakelidze at the National Centre of Urology, Tbilisi, Georgia
Lifebridge is the first portable heart-lung machine which promises a great success for the clinlical use.
The new £2 million remote access stereotaxis catheter laboratory at London's Heart Hospital, funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), is the first of its kind in the UK and one of only 40 worldwide.
Results of a gender-specific study to assess the efficacy of the Taxus paclitaxel-eluting coronary stent in women undergoing coronary revascularisation were released at the European Society of Cardiology Congress by interventional device developer Boston Scientific.
The new European Transplantation Regulation makes it very difficult, or even impossible, to run a bone bank from 2007 onwards.
The ethics committee of the UK' s National Health Service (NHS) has cleared the way for the world's first full face transplant.
According to leading transplant specialists, within five years almost all renal transplants will be steroid free.
German medical technology firm Novalung GmbH (est. 2002) produces extracorporeal artificial lungs.
The European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT) - Europe's leading transplant society - has called for the universal backing of new schemes to safely and ethically increase donor organ numbers.
Transplant surgeons use checklists to establish whether donor and recipient hearts are compatible - almost like people looking for suitable partners.
Ventricular assist devices (VAD) have been used since the 1980s, primarily to provide support after cardiac surgery for several days during recovery, or more often to keep patients alive until later heart transplantation (HTx).
Implants presently in use consist of a smooth or textured silicone shell filled with a silicone gel or saline solution. The latter has one decisive drawback - the breast may cool considerably in winter. Smooth silicone implants may also shift or turn.
Cardiac assist devices (CAD) are blood pumps that support the circulatory functions of severely ill cardiac patients.
Birmingham, UK - Giving interleukin-2 receptor antibodies to patients after a kidney transplant can halve the risk of rejection, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal (Interleukin-2 receptor monoclonal antibodies in renal transplantation: meta-analysis of randomised trials BMJ Volume 326, pp 789-91).