. For the first time a French company has successfully implanted a new adjustable device to repair a heart valve defect in a human patient.

This Thursday, Kephalios announces that it has successfully implanted at the Vienna General Hospital, Austria, the first adjustable Kalios ring, intended to restore the normal functioning of the mitral valve with closing defects in some patients. This world premiere is inspired by the Carpentier rings implantation technique, practiced routinely for several decades, but improves the difficulty of adjustment: it causes leaks requiring a new intervention in about 10% of cases. “Because of this risk, nearly 4 million patients suffering from mitral insufficiency are not operated in Europe, the United States and Japan,” said Daniele Zanotti, general manager of the company co-founded in Aix-en-Provence by Truffle Capital and the inventors, Piergiogio Tozzi and Daniel Hayoz. Forming a capital D 40 millimeters wide, this chrome-cobalt alloy ring can, indeed, be precisely adjusted to the anatomy, if necessary several times in the months following the operation, thanks to a balloon catheter.
In fact after open-heart surgery, 40% of patients don’t see their mitral valve completely fixed. Kephalios wants to change that with a device that can be reached to adjust its shape and dimensions any time during and after implantation.