Device for suture attachment for minimally invasive heart valve repair
OwnerLevi Caffes, Joel Helgerson +3inventors
InventorsLevi Caffes, Joel Helgerson, Andrew Schifle, Daryl Edmiston, Graham Garvin
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Abstract
Disclosed herein are minimally invasive systems and methods for intravascularly accessing the heart and performing a transcatheter repair of a heart valve by inserting a suture as an artificial chordae into a heart valve leaflet. In various embodiments, such systems and methods can be employed in other heart valve repair procedures such an edge to edge repair to coapt leaflets by inserting one or more sutures that retain the leaflets in a coapted positioned or inserting a suture to repair a tear in a leaflet, for example.
Claims20
A suture attachment catheter configured to repair a heart valve by inserting a suture in a valve leaflet of a beating heart of a patient, comprising:
- a generally flexible catheter body having a proximal end, a distal end and a length greater than 100 cm;
- a suture attachment assembly proximate the distal end of the catheter body, the suture attachment assembly including:
- a proximal clamping jaw disposed adjacent the distal end of the catheter body;
- a rail having a proximal portion and distal portion, the proximal portion configured to be selectively longitudinally slideable with respect to the proximal clamping jaw;
- and
- a distal clamping jaw hingedly attached to the distal portion of the rail;
- a control handle operable attached to the proximal end of the catheter body, the control handle including:
- a rail actuator configured to selectively longitudinally slide the rail with respect to the proximal clamping jaw;
- and
- a jaw actuator configured to selectively pivot the distal clamping jaw between a first position for delivery of the suture attachment assembly into the heart and a second position for capturing a valve leaflet between the proximal clamping jaw and the distal clamping jaw;
- and
- a flexible member extending from the jaw actuator through the catheter body to a distal surface of the distal clamping jaw, wherein the jaw actuator selectively moves the flexible member to pivot the distal clamping jaw.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.