Locally developed device offers hope for aortic dissection patients

Some 28.5 percent of patients with the condition known as aortic dissection who make it to surgery die. But now patients may have a greater chance of survival if surgeons have access to a device that cuts operating times and limits the loss of blood.

The head of the local surgical team that developed the device, Dr. Jeng Wei, director of the Heart Center at the Cheng Hsin Rehabilitation Center in Taipei, said he has used the device, called the vascular ring connector (VRC), with positive results on a total of 20 patients.

In 2006, the VRC became the first implanted cardiovascular device developed by Taiwanese researchers to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Wei and his team then submitted the device for approval in Taiwan before using it successfully on patients.
Aortic dissection is a condition in which a tear occurs in the aorta's inner lining, often caused by a sudden surge in blood pressure. Blood then flows between the wall's layers and forces them apart.

"The surgical risks of the (traditional) suturing method are very high due to the fragility of the dissected aorta," Wei noted.
"The VRC allows surgeons to do a quick sutureless anastomosis in less than two minutes, compared with the conventional suture technique that generally takes more than 30 minutes," he said.