Much like a car or a smartphone, our bodies are full of moving parts operating in a delicate balance. And much as the malfunction of a small but critical part can cause a car to stall or even stop running altogether, the same can occur with the human body.
Our hearts contain mitral leaflets, two flaps of tissue that control blood flow between the left atrium and left ventricle. The chordae tendinae (also known as heart strings) tendon-like chords that prevent the leaflets from prolapsing into the heart, play an instrumental role in the movement of the leaflets. However, if the chordae tendinae rupture or become elongated, a condition called degenerative mitral regurgitation (MR) may result. With MR, the leaflets don’t close tightly, causing blood to flow back into the left atrium. As a result, less blood is pumped into the aorta and ultimately, throughout the body. Degenerative MR accounts for 80 percent of mitral surgeries and is typically caused by ruptured or elongated chords.
Approximately 125,000 new diagnoses of MR are made each year, but only about 50,000 patients undergo surgery to fix the problem. Part of the reason for this treatment gap is the invasive nature of the surgical procedure: Patients undergo open-heart surgery, during which their heart is temporarily stopped. A large segment of patients aren’t ideal candidates for such an invasive procedure. Either the patient is too healthy (i.e., mitral regurgitation doesn’t make the patient sick enough to warrant a highly invasive surgical procedure), or the patient is too sick to tolerate open heart surgery. Patients who are too healthy may put off surgery until their symptoms become more severe, but MR, if left untreated, can lead to atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure and other cardiac problems.
One company trying to close the treatment gap for MR patients is NeoChord. The Minnetonka, Minn.-based company has developed a device for use in a minimally invasive procedure that can be performed on a beating heart. NeoChord’s device grabs a moving leaflet on the beating heart and attaches the artificial chord to it, pulling the device and the chord back through the left ventricle to the outside of the heart. The physician is able to monitor the placement of the chord through a transesophageal echocardiogram.
According to CEO John Seaberg, the less-invasive procedure using NeoChord’s device could decrease the length of an MR patient’s hospital stay from 6-8 days to 1-2 days. The market for less invasive techniques for mitral valve repair has been estimated at over $2 billion. The NeoChord device is currently undergoing clinical investigation.
NeoChord, along with dozens of other emerging life sciences companies, is scheduled to present at the OneMedForum San Francisco 2011 in January. To learn more about the conference, which brings together healthcare innovators with prominent investors, visit http://www.onemedplace.com/forum.