Wrocław/ Innovative procedure at the University Clinical Hospital

Doctors from the University Clinical Hospital in Wrocław performed a procedure that is innovative in the country, implanting a mitral valve on a beating heart without opening the chest. They presented details of the operation at a press conference on Wednesday.

The doctors performed the procedure on a patient complaining of severe symptoms of shortness of breath, which limited his simplest daily activities, such as walking a few steps or uninterrupted sleep. Due to his age and previous surgeries, available treatment methods were not possible. After the procedure, the patient feels good. He returned home.

"This is a groundbreaking procedure. It gives a real chance to patients who have been excluded from previous treatment options," said invasive cardiologist from the Institute of Heart Diseases at the University Clinical Hospital in Wrocław, Dr. Piotr Kübler.

He said doctors inserted the valve into the beating heart through a small incision, making the operation less stressful for the patient.

The Tendyne valve is the first device in Europe approved for broad clinical use in the treatment of mitral regurgitation using a transcatheter technique, i.e. through a small incision, without the need to open the chest and stop the heart. It allows the valve to be delivered to the organ in a compact form and then unfolded inside. The valve has a special ligament connecting it to the apex of the heart.

Deputy head of the Cardiac Surgery Department at the IChS USK in Wrocław, Dr. Maciej Bochenek, assessed that such a solution combines precision with minimal invasiveness.

“The Tendyne system not only allows for precise size and positioning, but also real-time alignment corrections,” he said.

In turn, the rector of the Medical University of Wrocław and the director of the Institute of Heart Diseases at the University Clinical Hospital, prof. dr hab. Piotr Ponikowski, argued that this is a milestone in the treatment of patients suffering from severe mitral regurgitation and not qualifying for previously available treatments.

“Implantation of the Tendyne valve is a breakthrough opportunity for them, a therapy that has simply not existed before,” he emphasized.

The Wrocław hospital is one of the few centres in Europe that offers a full spectrum of transcatheter methods of treating valve diseases. The hospital authorities announce that the performed operation is the beginning of a comprehensive treatment programme for patients with such diseases. The hospital is already qualifying more patients.

Mitral valve insufficiency often accompanies heart failure, which is the most common cause of death in Poland. According to available data, more than a million people suffer from it. The statistics only include patients with diagnosed disease. (PAP)

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