Restorative medical devices evolve into living blood vessels and heart valves

The grafts are gradually replaced by the patient’s own tissue

Spotted: Each year, around 40,000 mitral valve operations are performed in the US alone, often to repair leaky or stiff heart valves. While they have a high rate of success, the most common method, known as the loop technique uses sutures made of a synthetic polymer (polytetrafluoroethylene). Now, a medtech startup called Xeltis has developed a new technique for this and other operations, in which a polymer-based device is gradually colonised by the patient’s own tissue – which builds new valves and blood vessels.

Xeltis’ approach, called endogenous tissue restoration (ETR), involves using a polymer implant that is gradually absorbed by the body. The process of ETR is enabled by the porous nature of the bioabsorbable implant. The patient eventually develops tissue that pervades the implant, forming a new and fully functioning blood vessel or heart valve.

The goal of the procedure is to prevent patients from developing complications or needing to take medication permanently due to the use of artificial grafts. Xeltis claims its process can be used to replace the use of coronary bypass grafts, artificial heart valves, and hemodialysis access grafts.

The company describes its process as free from in-vitro tissue engineering, stem cells, and animal tissue. They add that the devices “work as normal heart valves or blood vessels once implanted. Over time, new tissue forms around and inside the device to develop a new, living, heart valve or blood vessel. The Xeltis device is then absorbed over time, leaving patients with a natural, healthy, and functioning heart valve or blood vessel.”

Xeltis’s technique could be a valuable approach to compliment the growing field of personalised medicine, in which devices are designed or tailored for use in individual patients. Some of the other innovations we have seen in this area include 3D, personalised bone implants, and genetically engineered cartilage that can act as a delivery system for anti-inflammatory drugs.