Israeli medical device prevents stroke from heart surgery

News from Jerusalem:  A simple filter could cut the high risk of stroke during a new minimally invasive operation to repair heart valves.

It's a classic Catch-22: A revolutionary, minimally invasive heart repair procedure now being investigated in America, and already being performed by European doctors, could save the lives of older people who might not be able to withstand open-heart surgery to repair their heart valves. However, up to 15 percent of all patients undergoing this procedure -- called TAVI, for transcatheter aortic valve implantation -- suffer a stroke on the operating table.

Foreseeing the risk years ago as TAVI was being developed, Israeli cardiologist Dr. Dov Shimon invented a novel way to prevent stroke, which happens when hardened bits of calcium come dislodged during the TAVI procedure, passing through the heart and going into the brain.

His innovation is a filter against these embolisms. Fitted onto the aortic arch, the medical device, now under development by the Israeli company SMT Research and Development in Herzliya Pituach, ensures that particles do not get into the blood flowing to the three main vessels leading from the heart.

The company of seven was founded in 2005 and has already raised $15 million, $10 million of which is from the healthcare equity fund OrbiMed. It is running its first human clinical trials in Europe, and similar clinical trials are to begin in the United States in 2012. In 15 surgeries performed in Holland using the SMT device, not one stroke has occurred.