Study Shows Sorin Group’s Phospholipid Reduction Treatment Significantly Reduces Calcium Absorption in Tissue Heart Valves to Help Enhance Valve Durability

Sorin Group (MIL:SRN), (Reuters Code: SORN.MI), a global medical company and a leader in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, announced that new data show that its proprietary Phospholipid Reduction Treatment (PRT™) technology for use with tissue heart valves significantly reduces calcium absorption to help enhance valve durability.

Phospholipids in the pericardial tissue play a key role in the calcification process of tissue heart valves, as their phosphate heads act as binding sites for circulating calcium ions. PRT, which is used with Sorin’s Mitroflow PRT™ and Crown PRT™ valves, was designed to reduce the phospholipid content before the calcium binding can occur.

The results were presented by Prof. Paul Herijgers, M.D., University of Leuven, Belgium, at the 64^th Congress of the European Society for Cardiovascular and Endovascular Surgery (ESCVS) in Istanbul¹. In the 60-day study, Prof. Herijgers and his team subcutaneously implanted pericardial tissue patches excised from commercially-available bioprostheses into laboratory rats. The researchers compared Sorin’s proprietary PRT coating to Linx AC™, which is used with the Trifecta™ valve (St. Jude Medical, USA), and ThermaFix™, which is used with the Perimount Magna™ valve (Edwards Lifesciences, USA) against a control group of standard glutaraldehyde-treated patches. The results showed that PRT technology significantly reduces calcium absorption compared to the control group.

"In previous works^2,3, our group reported that patient-prosthesis mismatch is associated with an increased incidence of structural valve degeneration in patients receiving tissue heart valves but also that anti-calcification treatment is effective in reducing that incidence significantly,” commented Prof. Herijgers. "This animal model study further strengthens our confidence that anti-calcification technologies are crucial to enhance valve durability and it also reinforces the message that surgeons play a key role in mitigating the risk of valve degeneration by minimizing patient-prosthesis mismatch and using tissue-treated technologies.”

"These results further validate the performance of our two PRT pericardial tissue heart valves currently available on the market, Mitroflow PRT and Crown PRT”, said Michel Darnaud, President, Cardiac Surgery Business Unit. "We are committed to providing the highest quality technology for cardiac surgical patients through continuous product innovation. Our patented PRT technology mitigates the potential for tissue heart valve calcification to further enhance the proven outstanding durability of previous-generation valves untreated with the phospholipid reduction technology.”

1. Herijgers et al. Anticalcification Treatments of Bioprosthetic Pericardial Heart Valve Tissue: a Comparative Experimental Study. 64th European Society for Cardiovascular and Endovascular Surgery. March 26-29, Istanbul. http://www.abstractagent.com/av2/afpr.asp?pdir=2015uccvs-program&plng=tur&au=1192&afu=157344

2. Flameng et al. Antimineralization treatment and patient-prosthesis mismatch are major determinants of the onset and incidence of structural valve degeneration in bioprosthetic heart valves. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2014 Apr;147(4):1219-24. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23623617

3. Flameng et al. Prosthesis-patient mismatch predicts structural valve degeneration in bioprosthetic heart valves. Circulation. 2010 May 18;121(19):2123-9. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20439787

About Sorin Group
Sorin Group (www.sorin.com) is a global, medical device company and a leader in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. The Company develops, manufactures, and markets medical technologies for cardiac surgery and for the treatment of cardiac rhythm disorders. With 3,900 employees worldwide,Sorin Group focuses on two major therapeutic areas: Cardiac Surgery (cardiopulmonary products for open heart surgery and heart valve repair or replacement prostheses) and Cardiac Rhythm Management (pacemakers, defibrillators and non invasive monitoring to diagnose arrhythmias and deliver anti-arrhythmia therapies as well as cardiac resynchronization devices for heart failure treatment) Every year, over one million patients are treated with Sorin Group devices in more than 100 countries.

For more information, please visit www.sorin.com

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