The treatment of rheumatic heart disease presents a medical and surgical challenge, particularly in developing countries, where the disease is prevalent. Most of these countries find it prohibitively expensive to import heart valve prostheses that are required for treatment and are largely manufactured in the United States and Europe. Even if the valves were available, the absence of facilities to conduct open-heart surgery for valve replacement results in many people from developing countries dying needlessly of the disease. To address this problem, transcatheter aortic valve implantation, an emerging, minimally invasive, treatment strategy for rheumatic heart disease, has been proposed. Areas covered: This paper reviews the literature on current valve technologies in use globally, and focuses on a minimally invasive transcatheter aortic valve implantation device and aortic valve prosthesis that have been developed by Strait Access Technologies Holdings in South Africa. Expert commentary: This new technology holds the potential of making available heart valve replacements to millions of patients in the developing world who would otherwise have no recourse to treatment.
Keywords: Rheumatic heart disease; aortic valve implantation; transcatheter.