Valley Hospital makes ‘tremendous step forward’ in cardiac care

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The Valley Hospital has racked up another “first.”  

The Ridgewood hospital announced Jan. 18 it is the first medical institution in the world to use a new technology from Abiomed during a high-risk coronary stenting procedure. 

Under the leadership of Dr. Rajiv Tayal, director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory and Structural Heart Program at The Valley Hospital, the team used Abiomed’s new Impella 14 Fr Low Profile Sheath while implanting an Impella CP with SmartAssist heart pump, which helps to pump blood, short term, throughout the body. 

A Valley representative confirmed with NJBIZ that Abiomed team members were on site to certify that Valley was the first anywhere to use this device. 

“The new sheath represents a tremendous step forward in advancing care and improving outcomes in patients requiring mechanical circulatory support for both high-risk percutaneous coronary intervention and cardiogenic shock,” Tayal said in a statement. 

The device, which received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in October 2022, “is designed to have a smaller footprint in the artery,” Tayal explained. 

The sheath makes “the insertion and removal of the Impella heart pump device easier while still allowing even the most complex procedures to be performed through a single access site in the body,” Tayal added. 

In October, when the device received FDA approval, Abiomed’s chief medical officer, Dr. Chuck Simonton, called the device “a game changing technological achievement.” 

Further benefits of the technology include: 

• Simplifying the procedure by eliminating the peel-away sheath and the need for the re-access sheath for intensive-care patients
• Minimizing vascular complications and bleeding
• Facilitating easier management of the patient during heart pump removal and vascular closure because Impella can be removed directly from the sheath without rewiring

Abiomed is a Massachusetts-based medical tech company, which Johnson & Johnson, headquartered in New Brunswick, acquired for $16.6 billion on Dec. 22, 2022.