Nguyễn Thủy Tiên
Mariam Noor, a Danish-Somali PhD student in engineering at Aarhus University, may have just found a cure for leaky heart valves. Noor is a student at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as the Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery at Aarhus University Hospital. She had been working on her device for the last three years, and in December of 2021, she may have just invented something that could change the medical world.
Heart valves are responsible for regulating blood movement. Leaky heart valves (also known as aortic insufficiency) is a condition in which any of the four valves experiences blood leaking backwards after the heart pumps and squeezes blood forward. It occurs in people whose heart’s valves don’t close tightly enough. Without treatment, this condition could result in heart failure.
Doctors have treated leaky heart valves by repairing or replacing the heart valve, however doing so is risky and could lead to complications in the process. Traditional treatment involves a round and rigid ring. In comparison, this state-of-the-art could make treatment easier for patients. Noor’s ring would be placed in the main artery rather than replacing the affected valve. Her ring would tighten to the aortic root to prevent blood that doesn't need to return from returning to the heart.
Noor’s ring is designed to be elastic that allows it to be more adaptable to the patient’s body, as opposed to the traditional rigid ring that limits operation on the heart. Although this invention is fairly new and requires more testing before it can be fully incorporated into the surgical world, Mariam Noor’s brilliance is guiding medical professionals closer to the solution.
Photo by Lars Kruse, AU Foto
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