Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement animal trials commence

The first successful live implantation of a Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) valve has been performed in a sheep, marking the start of 5 months of animal trials. Admedus Limited (Queensland, Australia) have announced the commencement of animal trials as part of its Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) project. Previously, Admedus has conducted various successful laboratory tests, whereby multiple 3D valves were run out to 400 million cycles, the equivalent of approximately 10 years of human use, with a competitor valve as a control. The team reported that whilst the competitor valve displayed signs of significant fatigue after 250 million...