Patent ID: 8470025

Claim:
A cardiovascular/surgical method comprising the following steps: providing a conduit in the form of a craft/canula placed using a balloon dilatation catheter, providing the catheter with a fixing mechanism, forming at least one opening through a wall of the heart substantially at the apex, preventing the escape of blood through use of the fixing mechanism, and performing each of the steps while the heart is beating, wherein the hole through the wall of the heart is created by a needle with a guide wire located in the needle and extending into the heart, removing the needle with the guide wire remaining in place, placing a sheath valve introducer with dilator over the guide wire, removing the dilator while leaving the guide wire in place, advancing a curved needle guiding catheter through the sheath valve introducer until the curve is out of the sheath, pulling tight a pull wire fixed to the tip of the needle guiding catheter, tightening the pull wire to maintain the shape of the needle guiding catheter and be rigid, and advancing needles with inner anchors toward the myocardium to create needle holes in the myocardium, passing sutures through the needle holes, fixing the anchors to the sutures inside the heart to create a fixation plug inside the heart and prevent the sutures from passing completely through the myocardium, advancing an insertion/balloon-catheter system containing an end balloon and a fixation balloon through the graft/canula, dilating the myocardium with the end balloon, disposing a rear valve assembly in the graft/canula to prevent blood loss, and anchoring the free end of the sutures which extend through and are located externally of the myocardium.