Edwards Lifesciences 2005 Annual Report"
One evening in 1944, John W. met a beautiful young woman and knew he
had found his future wife. A son, daughter, grandchild and half-century
later, John still says, “I don’t know how I’d get
along without her.”
When the retired sales manager was hospitalized in 2005 to receive
a pacemaker to regulate his heartbeat, he learned his aortic valve
also had deteriorated, and his condition made him a candidate for
percutaneous heart valve replacement with the Cribier-Edwards percutaneous
aortic heart valve.
Since undergoing his procedure, John has returned home and says, “My
life is as normal as it can get. I feel like a brand-new person,
and I am much stronger in my body.”
This experimental, proprietary technology is designed to treat patients with severe aortic heart valve stenosis by threading a replacement heart valve via a catheter through the patient’s circulatory system. Percutaneous heart valve replacement and repair represent important therapeutic options for patients, and Edwards leads the field with the most advanced and comprehensive platform of technologies in development. These new therapies offer the promise of less-invasive treatments, shorter hospital stays and faster recovery times for patients.