Project ID: D2021-31
Background
Every year, about 200,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). In general, endovascular aortic aneurysm repair (EVAR) is the standard of care for AAA. However, about 20-30% of AAA patients are not eligible for standard EVAR. People who are not candidates for EVAR can be treated with open repair, which is a very high risk procedure with elevated levels of perioperative complications that may not be compatible with some frail patients. The other option is treatment with a custom-made fenestrated or branched endovascular graft, which requires an expensive endograft that has to be requested about six weeks before placement, which does not make it a good option in urgent or emergent situations. It would be advantageous to provide new and improved devices and methods to treat such patients.
Invention Summary
Researchers at the University of Toledo have developed a novel fenestration device aimed to address the issue of treating juxtrenal AAA using endovascular technique. The novel device creates fenestrations allowing the passage of bridging stents to graft side branches in order to maintain the flow to the branch vessels from the aorta and also excluding the flow from the aortic aneurysm. Conventionally, lasers have been used to make holes in grafts so as to add stent grafts to accommodate the branches. However, the laser technique is not FDA approved, and is expensive, making it not a practical option for many patients. Advantageously, our fenestration device is capable of making holes in a graft material with a needle or sharp cutting edges, eliminating the need for a laser to fenestrate and the risk of native vessel perforation and endograft fabric disruption. Also, we have a retrievable vessel marker. This marker replaces the bare metal stents being used in the in-situ laser fenestration technique in order to mark the vessels.
Advantages:
IP Status: Patent pending.