A surgical probe that can wiggle like a worm could improve the success rate of keyhole heart surgery.
The probe bends and rotates in all directions, allowing surgeons to more accurately target the areas in the heart that need to be repaired.
This could improve the effectiveness of procedures and reduce the risk of patients needing additional surgeries. Around 25,000 NHS patients every year undergo surgery to repair heart defects such as a faulty mitral valve, one of the most common operations.
The mitral valve is a one-way valve that controls blood flow in the heart. However, if it becomes damaged, for example due to aging or a previous heart attack, the valve becomes weak. This means that blood that should carry vital oxygen around the body instead collects in the heart, causing shortness of breath and palpitations.
Left untreated, it can lead to heart failure, where the heart becomes too weak to pump blood around the body.
Around 25,000 NHS patients undergo surgery every year to repair heart defects such as a faulty mitral valve, one of the most common operations (Stock Image)
Surgery to repair damaged valves, or replace them with artificial ones, often involves an open-heart procedure, in which the chest is cut open to access the heart (Stock Image)
Surgery to repair damaged valves or replace them with artificial valves often involves an open-heart procedure, in which the chest is cut open to access the heart. However, in recent years, more and more operations have been performed with minimally invasive techniques.
This is where surgeons reach the heart using thin probes – fed through a tube called a catheter – through small holes in the side of the patient’s chest, or inserted into a large blood vessel in the thigh and then carried to the heart fed.
The probes usually have a camera on the end and surgical tools to cut or burn tissue to tighten the valve, or replace it with a new one (usually made of pig tissue). However, most surgical probes are semi-rigid and not easy to maneuver once placed in the heart.
Surgeons, using X-rays to guide them, must repeatedly twist and turn through what can be several feet of blood vessels to get the tip in the right place before treatment can even begin.
Some experts liken it to trying to control one end of a noodle while holding it from the other end. This means that the operation is more difficult and takes longer – and often needs to be repeated.
The new probe, developed at Boston University in the US, has three channels inside that are filled with a water-based gel, allowing the probe to bend easily without cracking. It is hollow in the center to allow surgical instruments to be inserted into the heart. Surgeons control the movement of the probe with a handset.
It also comes with an expandable metal cage that ‘locks’ the probe at the entrance to the heart. This anchors it and provides stability as it is maneuvered into the heart.
In tests, surgeons were able to operate with a high degree of precision on damage to large blood vessels around pigs’ hearts while they continued to beat, the journal Scientific Advances reported.
Further animal testing is expected before it is tried on humans.
Thanos Athanasiou, professor of cardiac surgery at Imperial College London, said: ‘This is a big research topic – but at the moment it is not clear what percentage of heart operations, or which operations, can be performed with this kind of technology. ‘