Stories about: beating-heart surgery

Minimally invasive tool uses light for beating-heart repairs

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Last year, cardiologists at Boston Children’s Hospital reported developing a groundbreaking adhesive patch for sealing holes in the heart. The patch guides the heart’s own tissue to grow over it, forming an organic bridge. Once the hole is sealed, the biodegradable patch dissolves, leaving no foreign material in the body.

As revolutionary as this device was, it still had one major drawback: implanting the patch required highly invasive open-heart surgery. But that may be about to change.

Researchers from the Wyss Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Boston Children’s have jointly designed a radically different way to implant the patch without having to stop the heart, place patients on bypass or cut open their chests. …

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A portal for beating-heart surgery

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Portal for beating heart surgery-analagous to mine entrance

When a patient needs a cardiac intervention, surgeons can choose to access the heart in one of two ways: open-heart surgery or a cardiac catheterization.

Open-heart surgery offers clear and direct access to the heart, but it also requires stopping the heart, draining the blood, and putting the patient on an external heart and lung machine. Catheterization—insertion of a thin, flexible tube through the patient’s groin and up into the still-beating heart—is less invasive. But it’s not suitable for very complicated situations, because it is hard to manipulate the heart tissue with catheter-based tools from such a far distance.

Both methods have been highly optimized, but each has its own risks, benefits and drawbacks. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a way to directly access the heart and maintain normal heart function and blood flow while repairs are performed?

Nikolay Vasilyev, MD, thought so. A scientist in the cardiac surgery research lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, led by Pedro del Nido, MD, Vasilyev has designed a platform technology that may revolutionize the way we conduct cardiac interventions. …

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Guiding devices to market, and mending broken hearts

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A biodegradable patch for repairing ventral septal defects (VSDs).

Imagine: You’re a pediatric cardiologist who for years has worked on the design of a device that could revolutionize the treatment of a severe atrial arrhythmia. But while you can find a lot of assistance and advice for bringing devices for adults to market, you find little help for devices intended for infants and children. What can you do?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration could be your best friend. Better known for its role in establishing and enforcing regulations for drug and device safety and information, the FDA is also an advocate, helping bring innovative devices for pediatric treatment into clinical practice. Pedro del Nido, chief of cardiac surgery at Children’s Hospital Boston, outlined the FDA’s advocacy role last week at the monthly Innovators’ Forum hosted by the Children’s Innovation Acceleration Program. …

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Beating-heart surgery and the search for a killer app

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Concept for a new kind of surgical robot (click to enlarge)

Inventors and engineers tend to come up with ideas and technologies first, then say, “This is cool, what’s it good for?” Clinicians tend to say, “Here’s my clinical problem, how can I solve it?”

This was roughly the thinking that brought together Boston University engineer Pierre Dupont and Pedro del Nido, chief of Cardiac Surgery at Children’s Hospital Boston.

Dupont had a vision for a next-generation surgical robot. del Nido had a vision of doing complex cardiac repairs in children while their hearts are still beating. Could they create a viable technology? …

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