Breakthrough: Kalangos Ring for Pediatric Heart Valve Repair
By Adam Pick - Patient, Author & HeartValveSurgery.com Founder
 
Children with heart defects, particularly those born without a connection between the pulmonary artery and ventricle, also known as congenital mitral valve disease, will no longer have to go for multiple surgery to correct the defect.

The Kalangos Ring is a relatively new concept in annuloplasty valve repair. The annuloplasty valve ring corrects the heart halve and preserves the growth potential of the child's heart by inducing the creation of fibrous tissue.

This new concept (the Kalangos Ring) was explained by cardiac surgery professor from the University of Geneva, Dr. Afksendiyos Kalangos, at the first Advanced Valve Repair in Children symposium held at the National Heart Institute (IJN).

"The procedure in treating faulty heart valves in adults is by implanting the traditional annuloplasty ring to hold the artery rigid. In children, however, the repair strategy requires periodic surgery as the body outgrows the ring.

"The Kalangos ring exploits the body's ability to develop scar tissue. Implanted at the base of the mitral valve, it mimics the natural fibrous ring in the valve and performs the necessary task to function normally", said Kalangos who created the ring.

The Kalangos Ring For Children

The Kalangos Ring comes in pediatric size below 26 millimeters. It can also reduce the risk of local infection because there is no synthetic material implanted and it is time effective where it reduces almost half the surgery time.

The proportion of time the children spend with an inefficiently working heart will be reduced and will contribute to increasing life expectancy.

Source: https://www.heart-valve-surgery.com/kalangos-ring.php