In-vivo mitral annuloplasty ring transducer: implications for implantation and annular downsizing.
Mitral annuloplasty has been a keystone to the success of mitral valve repair in functional mitral regurgitation. Understanding the complex interplay between annular-ring stresses and left ventricular function has significant implications for patient-ring selection, repair failure, and patient safety. A step towards assessing these challenges is developing a transducer that can be implanted in the exact method as commercially available rings and can quantify multidirectional ring loading. An annuloplasty ring transducer was developed to measure stresses at eight locations on both the in-plane and out-of-plane surfaces of an annuloplasty ring's titanium core. The transducer was implanted in an ovine subject using 10 sutures at near symmetric locations. At implantation, the ring was observed to undersize the mitral annulus. The flaccid annulus exerted both compressive (-) and tensile stresses (+) on the ring ranging from -3.17 to 5.34 MPa. At baseline hemodynamics, stresses cyclically changed and peaked near mid-systole. Mean changes in cyclic stress from ventricular diastole to mid-systole ranged from -0.61 to 0.46 MPa (in-plane direction) and from -0.49 to 1.13 MPa (out-of-plane direction). Results demonstrate the variability in ring stresses that can be introduced during implantation and the cyclic contraction of the mitral annulus. Ring stresses at implantation were approximately 4 magnitudes larger than the cyclic changes in stress throughout the cardiac cycle. These methods will be extended to ring transducers of differing size and geometry. Upon additional investigation, these data will contribute to improved knowledge of annulus-ring stresses, LV function, and the safer development of mitral repair techniques.
The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, 313 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.
Andrew W
AW
Siefert
Steven A
SA
Touchton
Jeremy R
JR
McGarvey
Satoshi
S
Takebayashi
Jean Pierre M
JP
Rabbah
Jorge H
JH
Jimenez
Neelakantan
N
Saikrishnan
Robert C
RC
Gorman
Joseph H
JH
Gorman
Ajit P
AP
Yoganathan
D000818:Animals; D019918:Heart Valve Prosthesis Implantation; D058386:Mitral Valve Annuloplasty; D012756:Sheep; D013314:Stress, Mechanical
Mitral annuloplasty; Mitral valve; Mitral valve repair; Strain gage; Transducer