First Clinical Experience With the HEARTSTRING, a Device for Proximal Anastomoses in Coronary Surgery

Results with the Heartstring anastomotic device in patients with diseased ascending aorta

“…However, its use does not completely avoid embolization as a minimal manipulation of the ascending aorta is still required. As a result of this, postoperative stroke may still occasionally occur as observed in one patient in this series and in two previous reports (4,6). Although postoperative stroke can be the result of air embolism (4), atherosclerotic plaque embolism is the most likely underlying mechanism (6) as the use of this device does not let the ascending aorta completely untouched.…”

Initial clinical experience with the Heartstring

“…9 We first examined the ascending aorta to assess whether it was a suitable site to apply the Heartstring. In situations where the aorta is calcified or severely artherosclerotic, it is dangerous to apply this device because there might be a high associated risk of embolism.…”

“…Their initial results are encouraging. [8][9][10] The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the Heartstring could be applied safely to high-risk patients with diseased aortas and to review the initial clinical experience. In this article, we report our initial experience with this device.…”

New device for saphenous vein-to-aorta proximal anastomosis without side-clamping

“…This is achieved by deploying concave membranes into the aorta. The membrane closes the hole from the inside but it allows the movements of the needle [10-12]. Nevertheless, these commercially available manual devices are somewhat difficult to use and very expensive to buy.…”