Anchor hook for side-delivery transcatheter heart valve prosthesis

A method for deploying an anchor hook system for a prosthetic transcatheter heart valve, comprising:

• (i) advancing a delivery catheter through a lumen of an anchor channel of a transcatheter heart valve to a subannular position;
• (ii) expelling an anchor hook out of a distal end of the delivery catheter by applying a distally-directed force to an elongated pusher that is disposed within the delivery catheter and engaged with a proximal end of a shaft portion of the anchor hook, the anchor hook having a hook portion on the distal end of the shaft portion, the hook portion being biased from a compressed configuration in which the hook portion is folded towards the shaft portion and an expanded configuration in which the hook portion extends away from the shaft portion, the anchor hook further having anchoring tabs or barbs disposed along the shaft portion and biased to an expanded configuration in which they extend away from a central axis of the shaft portion to a radius from the central axis that is larger than the inner diameter of the anchor channel lumen, the anchoring tabs or barbs being in a compressed configuration in the delivery catheter in which they extend away from the central axis of the shaft portion to a radius from the central axis that is smaller than the inner diameter of the anchor channel lumen,
• wherein the hook portion and the anchoring tabs or barbs are in their respective compressed configurations when disposed within the delivery catheter, and the hook portion and the anchoring tabs or barbs self-expand to their respective expanded configurations when expelled from the delivery catheter;
• and
• (iii) pulling the shaft portion of the anchor hook into the anchor channel by pulling the elongated pusher in a proximal direction,
• wherein pulling the shaft portion retracts the hook portion in a proximal direction and captures native leaflet tissue or native chordae tendineae within or on the hook portion of the anchor hook, and the retracted hook portion presses the native leaflet tissue or native chordae tendineae against a subannular portion of the prosthetic transcatheter heart valve or a subannular surface of the native annulus, and wherein pulling the shaft portion of the anchor hook into the anchor channel draws the opened/expanded tabs/barbs into the anchor channel and create a tensioning force with the tabs/barbs pressing against an interior surface of the anchor channel.