Passive alignment of commissures in prosthetic heart valve implantation

A method of implanting a collapsible prosthetic heart valve into a native aortic valve of a patient, the method comprising:

• providing a delivery device having an inner shaft, an outer shaft, and a distal sheath disposed distal to the outer shaft and about a portion of the inner shaft to form a compartment with the inner shaft, the compartment being sized to receive the prosthetic heart valve, the inner shaft and the distal sheath being movable relative to one another, the delivery device having a spine extending along the outer shaft, the spine biasing the outer shaft so that the outer shaft is configured to bend in a pre-determined direction, wherein the spine includes a plurality of individual plates, each individual plate overlapping a portion of an adjacent plate so that the spine is configured to resist bending in a non-preferred direction opposite the pre-determined direction;
• loading the prosthetic heart valve into the distal sheath in a collapsed condition, the prosthetic heart valve having three prosthetic commissures;
• advancing the distal sheath of the delivery device through an aortic arch of the patient so that the outer shaft of the delivery device bends in the pre-determined direction, the bend including an outer radius and an inner radius, one of the three prosthetic commissures confronting the outer radius of the bend during the advancing;
• continuing to advance the distal sheath until the distal sheath is adjacent the native aortic valve and the distal sheath is positioned adjacent a native commissure between a right coronary cusp and a non-coronary cusp of the patient;
• and
• retracting the distal sheath and expanding the prosthetic heart valve so that the one of the three prosthetic commissures is positioned in rotational alignment with the native commissure.