If you’ve ever known a family whose child had heart surgery, here’s a ray of good news: A revolutionary new heart stent designed for children grows with the patient, increasing the diameter of the device as the patient matures, thereby eliminating the need for additional invasive surgeries later in life to insert a wider stent, CBS News reports.
More than 40,000 children in the United States are born each year with congenital heart problems that will require surgery as an infant, virtually all of them requiring follow-up surgeries as they grow older to replace the initial stent. Currently, in 60% of cases, surgeons use off-label equipment or adapt a small-diameter stent design for an adult to fill the need.
The innovation could prevent literally tens of thousands of surgeries annually as doctors treat growing patients. The stent, called a Minima stent, has been used on ten neonate and pediatric patients, all of whom showed normal function at their six-month follow-up examinations. The device aims to become the first endovascular stent to be approved exclusively for the treatment of infants.