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A multicenter study led by Doff McElhinney, MD, in Children’s Department of Cardiology, reports good preliminary results with a kind of heart valve that can be implanted via catheter—threaded up to the heart through a leg vein. If results bear out, the device may allow children with certain congenital heart defects to enjoy better heart function with fewer open-heart surgeries.
The study followed 30 children who received the device, known as the Melody transcatheter pulmonary valve (Medtronic, Inc), after a prior implant had failed. The valve was successfully placed in 29 children; three had complications but survived them. At six months, the valves appeared to be functioning well, and many children were able to be more physically active.
“Currently, when patients have implants that become dysfunctional, we are faced with the choice of tolerating that dysfunction or sending them back to surgery,” says McElhinney. “We almost inevitably end up accepting some degree of dysfunction, often for many years, because patients can’t keep going for surgery every couple of years.”
But with a catheter procedure, in which patients usually go home the next day, the threshold for intervening can be lowered, he adds.
In 2007, Children’s became the first hospital to implant the Melody valve in a patient. A dramatic test, reported in the Wall Street Journal, came in late October. Cardiologist-in-Chief, James Lock, MD, led a team that successfully placed the valve in a 4-year-old boy with tetralogy of Fallot and severe complications of H1N1 influenza, whose existing replacement valve was dysfunctional.
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