pulmonary artery

This allows her heart to deflate, allowing the "very tricky" procedure to detach part of her heart - the right ventricular outflow tract - and the pulmonary artery from where it has stuck to her skin.

The 16-year-old was born with a deformed pulmonary artery - a serious and potentially life-limiting condition - and a hole in her heart.

The researchers determined a metric that can assess this compliance by using just the VAD itself and a pulmonary artery catheter that is commonly implanted in these patients.

"We tried a fundamentally different approach -- cell therapy delivered into the pulmonary artery -- and found encouraging results, in patients already on combination conventional therapy."

In the new study, Dr. Bashir and colleagues observed reductions in occlusions in segmental and proximal branches of the pulmonary artery 48 hours following treatment with the BASHIR™ catheter.