St Jude Medical study shows Portico aortic heart valve benefits

St Jude Medical has published a new clinical study supporting the strong performance of its new Portico transcatheter aortic heart valve.

The company has completed a 30-day study involving ten patients in Belfast, during which the technical feasibility, safety and device deployment characteristics of the valve and accompanying transfemoral delivery system were tested.

At the end of the trial period, no device or procedure-related adverse events or deaths were recorded, while a majority of patients had trivial or no paravalvular leaks, a common complaint during procedures of this kind.

This small-scale study will pave the way for the start of a full European clinical trial of the valve before the end of 2011.

Study leader Dr Ganesh Manoharan said: "Based on our experience implanting the valve and the positive patient outcomes we have seen in these ten patients, the Portico transcatheter valve technology looks very promising."

Last week, the company announced that its innovative FFR technology offering PressureWire Aeris is to be made more accessible by offering compatibility with the Philips Xper Flex Cardio physiomonitoring system.