New Sutureless Aortic Valve: Perspectives from Its Earliest U.S. Adopter (Video)

“A sutureless valve [allows us to] still address the native diseased valve through a surgical approach, and we cut it out like we do for a surgical operation, but instead of putting anywhere from 12 to 20 sutures inside the aorta to sew the regular stented valve in place, this Perceval self-expanding valve… is delivered inside the aorta. When it’s released, it’s this stent that seals and holds it in place with no sutures at all… that speeds up the operation, and we’ve seen so far that these devices have been very efficient in the initial trial and in commercial availability…



We’re the first center in the U.S. to use this commercially available valve, and we’ve continued to use this valve over the last several weeks and have continued to have a great experience with it.



We think that there are some very clear advantages to the use of this valve. Number one: we see that it shortens the amount of time that we have to have the heart stopped… we think that’s especially important in patients who are undergoing a multi-component operation… We also think that this can be very helpful in the patients who have calcified aorta… The third group… is the patients who are wishing to have a lesser invasive surgical approach.”