An 80-year-old female patient needs a new aortic valve replacement. Since the old one is severally calcified, the leaflets no longer open properly. Due to various factors, the patient is considered inoperable. Nevertheless, to make surgery possible for her, specialists at the Heart and Diabetes Center NRW in Germany have prepared the intervention based on an exact 3D heart replica. Aside from conducting this research, Professor Stephan Ensminger, senior physician at the Clinic for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, also personally performed the surgery. MEDICA.de spoke with him about the reasons behind this intensive surgery preparation and its use in clinical application. Professor Ensminger, how did you come up with the idea to first test the surgical procedure as well as the replacement on a model? Stephan Ensminger: The primary motivation for our idea was to minimize the risk for this particular patient and to maximize our chances of success, since this patient is older, very ill, has already...
Read more in the interview at MEDICA.de