The past year witnessed two milestones in structural heart disease: the first US approval of a transcatheter aortic heart valve – the Sapien valve from Edwards Lifesciences Corp. – and the completion of the first ever randomized clinical trial for a percutaneous device for mitral valve disease, the MitraClip from Abbott Laboratories Inc.
Percutaneous Mitral Valve Therapy: The Next Decade
After more than a decade, the field of transcatheter mitral valve therapy is still in its infancy, yet it is surprisingly crowded. The first percutaneous mitral valve company was founded in 1999, the same year that the first transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) company was founded, but while TAVI is now on the market in Europe and in the US, the leading transcatheter mitral valve therapy has only just completed clinical trials.