Gore reported the first clinical uses of the Gore C3 delivery system to deploy the Gore Excluder AAA endoprosthesis as a minimally invasive treatment for patients suffering from an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). The device received approval from the FDA at the beginning of January 2011. The first procedures were successfully performed by vascular surgeons and interventionalists at medical centers around the USA few days later after its approval. This new technology allows physicians to position the device to the specific anatomy of each individual patient.
According to Michel Makaroun, chief of the Division of Vascular Surgery and professor of Surgery at UPMC, a 70-year-old woman with a large aneurysm and diseased aortic neck received without complications the first Gore Excluder AAA endoprosthesis with the Gore C3 delivery system at UPMC. “The recapture mechanism worked very nicely to allow repositioning of the Gore Excluder device, a feature that will increase our confidence in treating challenging aortic neck anatomies,” Makaroun commented.
On the other hand, Jon Matsumura, professor of Surgery and chairman of the Division of Vascular Surgery, University of Wisconsin, added, “Our patient had difficult proximal aortic neck anatomy, and the combination of both a robotic, multi-axis imaging platform and the recently approved reconstrainable deployment system of this EVAR device allowed us to safely treat an elderly Wisconsin woman with a minimally invasive approach. We used the unique ability to deploy an EVAR device, reconstrain and then redeploy twice in today’s complex case to increase our placement accuracy beyond what would have been possible with a single deployment.”
The first US procedures to treat patients with an abdominal aortic aneurysm using the new system were performed by:
- Michel Makaroun and Robert Rhee, University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre (UPMC) Vascular Surgery
- Mark Fillinger and William Tanski, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
- Claudio Schonholz and Joseph Hart, University of South Carolina
- Alan Lumsden, Methodist Hospital
- Jon Matsumura, University of Wisconsin
- David Minion, University of Kentucky
