Researchers at Boston Children’s Hopsital, Wyss Institute at Harvard University, the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have put their minds together to develop a new device that can deliver and apply an adhesive patch to repair holes in the heart. The new device they may add to the cardiac surgeon’s toolbox is a catheter that uses UV light and an attached light reflecting balloon. In order to apply this bandage inside the heart without open surgery, the catheter is inserted through a vein in the groin or neck and is guided towards the wound. Once the catheter is in position, the clinician inflates two balloons that provide mechanical stability and pressure to the adhesive patch. One balloon comes out the front end of the catheter and the other is positioned on the other side of the heart wall. The patch is used, and a UV light from fiber optic cables is reflected off of the shiny metal coated interior of the balloons. The adhesive cures and the catheter is then removed.
This technology will allow surgeons and cardiologists to perform a wide variety of operations that are not just limited to the heart. The researchers, however, have identified a few limitations that this technology has before it can be translated into clinical use. First, in their study the catheter was introduced into the porcine model through an artificially created defect in the right ventricular wall, but in real clinical applications a different approach would be necessary. Secondly, the catheter is actually removed through the heart patch which leaves a residual hole. This is still just a proof of concept study, and there is still a while before this technology turns into a real product.
Wyss Institute press release: Fixing holes in the heart without invasive surgery…
Study in Science Translational Medicine: A light-reflecting balloon catheter for atraumatic tissue defect repair…
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