title: Modified 'dumbbell' technique: a simple and intuitive method to position balloon-expandable stent valves.
abstract: Intraoperative cardiac imaging plays a key role during transcatheter aortic valve replacement. In recent years, new techniques and new tools for improved image quality and virtual navigation have been proposed, in order to simplify and standardize stent valve positioning and implantation. But routine performance of the new techniques may require major economic investments or specific knowledge and skills and, for this reason, they may not be accessible to the majority of cardiac centres involved in transcatheter valve replacement projects. Additionally, they still require injections of contrast medium to obtain computed images. Therefore, we have developed and describe here a very simple and intuitive method of positioning balloon-expandable stent valves, which represents the evolution of the 'dumbbell' technique for echocardiography-guided transcatheter valve replacement without angiography. This method, based on the partial inflation of the balloon catheter during positioning, traps the crimped valve in the aortic valve orifice and, consequently, very near to the ideal landing zone. It does not require specific echocardiographic knowledge; it does not require angiographies that increase the risk of postoperative kidney failure in elderly patients, and it can be also performed in centres not equipped with a hybrid operating room.
authors.affiliation: Cardiovascular Surgery Unit, University Hospital of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland. enricoferrari@bluewin.ch
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ferrari
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Niclauss
authors.forename: Denis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Berdajs
authors.forename: Ludwig Karl
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: von Segesser
mesh_terms: D001021:Aortic Valve / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000601:surgery*; D001024:Aortic Valve Stenosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000601:surgery*; D017548:Echocardiography, Transesophageal; D006350:Heart Valve Prosthesis; D019918:Heart Valve Prosthesis Implantation / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D062645:Percutaneous Coronary Intervention / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D018084:Ultrasonography, Interventional