Early results with the use of biodegradable ring for atrioventricular valve repair

  • Dr Fotios Mitropoulos, Department of Pediatric and Congenital Cardiac surgery, Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Athens, Greece, Greece
  • Dr Meletios Kanakis, Department of Pediatric and Congenital Cardiac surgery, Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Athens, Greece, Greece
  • Dr Constantinos Contrafouris, Department of Pediatric and Congenital Cardiac surgery, Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Athens, Greece, Greece
  • Dr Nicholaos Giannopoulos, Department of Pediatric and Congenital Cardiac surgery, Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Athens, Greece, Greece
  • Dr Andreas Chatzis, Department of Pediatric and Congenital Cardiac surgery, Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Athens, Greece, Greece
  • Dr Michael Mylonakis, Department of Pediatric and Congenital Cardiac surgery, Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Athens, Greece, Greece
  • Dr Prodromos Azariades, Department of Pediatric and Congenital Cardiac surgery, Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Athens, Greece, Greece

    • Objective We describe our early results with the use of biodegradable ring for atrioventricular (AV) valve repair in patients with congenital heart diseases.
    Patients-Methods 25 patients (aged from 11 months to 58 years old, 9 males and 16 females) underwent cardiac surgery for congenital heart diseases during the period of March 2006 – December 2008.
    6 patients underwent mitral valve annuloplasty, 18 tricuspid valve annuloplasty and 1 combined. All patients underwent A-V valve annuloplasty using the biodegradable ring Kalangos (Bioring SA, Lonay, Switzerland). The sizes of the ring for the mitral and tricuspid position were 16-26 mm and 26-34 mm respectively. Mean follow-up was 16.2 months.
    Results Success of implantation was 100%. There were no perioperative or postoperative complications. Mean operative time for ring placement was 7 min. Mean hospital stay was 8 days. Latest transthoracic echocardiography during the follow-up showed trace mitral valve regurgitation (MVR) in 5 and mild in 1; trace tricuspid valve regurgitation (TVR) in 10, mild in 8 and mild to moderate in 1 patient. Furthermore, there was a significant decrease of the left ventricular dimensions in patients with MVR and significant decrease of the right heart chambers size in patients with TVR. All patients are currently in excellent clinical status (NYHA I: 22 and NYHA I-II: 3) without symptoms.
    Conclusion The use of biodegradable ring for AV valve annuloplasty is a safe, quick and reliable technique with excellent short term results. Further follow-up is needed in order to evaluate the long term results.