Red Vascular Endograft Deployment in Model Aorta and Branch Artery - Video

Cardiothoracic surgeon and Endologix founder and inventor Myles Douglas MD places a prototype of the Red Vascular Branch Endograft System in a model aorta and branch artery. Red Vascular's system permits minimally invasive stent grafting of aortic aneurysms that extend into branch arteries. In one procedure, both the aorta and its branches can be grafted, and both endograft sheaths withdrawn, from a single access site in a femoral artery. Suitable aortic branches for endograft placement include the iliac, brachiocephalic, carotid, subclavian, renal, hepatic, and superior mesenteric arteries. The system is nonmodular, meaning the main aortic graft and branch graft are delivered as a single unit and are covered by the same continuous fabric. This eliminates risk of junctional endoleak (blood leakage into the aneurysm) caused by separation of the aortic and branch grafts. By contrast, modular systems like Endologix's Ventana require that separate branch grafts be placed through fenestrations (openings) in the aortic graft. These systems can encounter problems, such as endoleak or branch graft migration, that compromise blood flow to organs (e.g., the kidneys) perfused by the branch arteries. Patients then require repeat procedures to fix these problems.