Innovative new heart treatment now available at New Cross Hospital

The MitraClip device can be fitted to patients as an alternative procedure for those deemed too high risk for mitral valve repair surgery. It is less invasive, recovery time is faster and it is more effective than medical treatment alone.

The Heart and Lung Centre at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust is the first in the West Midlands to use the MitraClip trans-catheter-edge-to-edge repair system.

Insertion of the MitraClip – similar to a ‘clothes peg’ but made of metal alloy and wrapped in polyester fabric – involves clipping together a small area of the heart’s mitral valve leaflets, an ‘edge to edge’ repair.

Patients eligible for this procedure have severe mitral regurgitation, which occurs when the mitral valve (one of the four main heart valves) doesn’t close tightly, causing blood to ‘leak’ backwards in the heart resulting in heart failure, repeated admissions and a poor prognosis if left untreated.

The procedure is performed under general anaesthetic, takes between one to two hours and goes through the skin and is therefore less invasive, avoiding open heart surgery with a sternotomy and the need to go onto a bypass machine. This allows a more rapid recovery and shorter hospital stay.

Saib Khogali, Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, has now performed three cases with this advanced method. He said: "As we develop our experience in this procedure, I would estimate we will perform 50 cases per year, and there will be other, newer developments as the technology improves further.

"The standard treatment for this is surgery, but a substantial number of patients can’t have surgery due to risks, so there’s an unmet clinical need for a lower risk, less invasive procedure to treat the mitral valve.

"This new procedure has enabled us to treat patients who would otherwise remain untreated because of the high risk of surgery, poor prognosis and high mortality."