Patent ID: 9668739
Date: 2017-06-06
CPC Classifications: A61B

Claim:
1. A method for securing a prosthetic heart valve to a native heart valve annulus, comprising the steps of: inserting a prosthetic heart valve having a securing ring to a native heart valve annulus such that the securing ring is in contact with the annulus; advancing a securing device toward the prosthetic heart valve, the securing device having an outer tube with a lumen and a stop flange on a distal end thereof, an inner needle having a sharpened end and sized and aligned to pass through the outer tube lumen and extend from the outer tube stop flange, self-cinching clips made of a super-elastic material held in a substantially straight constrained configuration within a lumen in the inner needle, a self-cinching clip having a non-linear relaxed configuration when unconstrained, and a pusher shaft sized to fit through the inner needle lumen and expel the clip therefrom, wherein the inner needle is mounted for movement along a channel in a housing, and the pusher shaft has a fixed position at a proximal end of the channel such that proximal movement of the inner needle causes the pusher shaft to expel the clip from the inner needle, and wherein the securing device has a cartridge with a plurality of chambers each sized to hold one of the self-cinching clips in its constrained configuration, the inner needle being attached to the cartridge and the entire cartridge being movable along the housing channel between a distal position and a proximal position; puncturing the prosthetic heart valve securing ring and native heart valve annulus using the sharpened end of the inner needle until the stop flange contacts the securing ring and the inner needle projects beyond a distal side of the annulus; partially expelling the clip from the inner needle using the pusher shaft so that a portion of the clip beyond the distal side of the annulus returns to its relaxed configuration; withdrawing the inner needle to a proximal side of the securing ring; fully expelling the clip from the inner needle so that a portion of the clip on the proximal side of the securing ring returns to its relaxed configuration, thus holding the securing ring against the annulus; and repeating the steps of puncturing, partially expelling, withdrawing and fully expelling to deploy multiple clips around the securing ring, including sequentially aligning different chambers with the pusher shaft and inner needle to sequentially deploy multiple clips.