Breakthrough: Kalangos Ring for Pediatric Heart Valve Repair
Children with heart defects, particularly those born without a connection between the pulmonary artery and ventricle, also known as congenital mitral valve disease, will no longer have to go for multiple surgery to correct the defect.
Dr. Afksendiyos Kalangos (Inventor of the Kalangos Ring)
The Kalangos Ring is a relatively new concept in annuloplasty valve repair. The annuloplasty valve ring corrects the heart halve and preserves the growth potential of the child's heart by inducing the creation of fibrous tissue.
This new concept (the Kalangos Ring) was explained by cardiac surgery professor from the University of Geneva, Dr. Afksendiyos Kalangos, at the first Advanced Valve Repair in Children symposium held at the National Heart Institute (IJN).
"The procedure in treating faulty heart valves in adults is by implanting the traditional annuloplasty ring to hold the artery rigid. In children, however, the repair strategy requires periodic surgery as the body outgrows the ring.
"The Kalangos ring exploits the body's ability to develop scar tissue. Implanted at the base of the mitral valve, it mimics the natural fibrous ring in the valve and performs the necessary task to function normally", said Kalangos who created the ring.
The Kalangos Ring For Children
The Kalangos Ring comes in pediatric size below 26 millimeters. It can also reduce the risk of local infection because there is no synthetic material implanted and it is time effective where it reduces almost half the surgery time.
The proportion of time the children spend with an inefficiently working heart will be reduced and will contribute to increasing life expectancy.
You May Also Like
To help you learn more about heart valve repair rings, you may like:
- Surgeon Q&A: What Should Patients Know About Mitral Valve Repair Rings?
- Video: How Durable is a Heart Valve Repair Ring?
- Mitral Valve Repair: What Should Patients Know?
- Video: Advantages of Aortic Valve Repair with Dr. Lawrence Wei
- Free eBook: Advantages of Mitral Valve Repair
- Meet Heart Valve Patients in Our Community
Page last updated: September 17, 2020
Written by Adam Pick
- Patient & Website Founder
