Surgical mitral valve repair is the gold standard in treating severe mitral regurgitation (MR). New minimally invasive techniques have emerged, such as the transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (TEER), specifically designed to treat frail patients without the use of sternotomy or cardiopulmonary bypass.

 

These procedures are limited to straightforward cases, leaving a small group of patients without an alternative.

The Abbott Tendyne© device recently emerged as a new alternative.

We present a series of challenging cases who were not eligible for any   of the standard procedures, proposing the expansion of the Tendyne©   device indication spectrum.

 

To date, only about 1650 Tendyne© implantations have taken place worldwide. This number is a lot smaller once the study/clinical cases are subtracted.

In the Kepler University Hospital in Linz, Austria, we have implanted 40 Tendyne© prostheses, a large number of which were off-label cases. These challenging cases did not qualify for standard fashion TMVR, and were left without a treatment option.