一種新型主動脈心臟瓣膜的設計，使得外科醫生將瓣膜植入主動脈環后無需進行縫合。從而將心肺分流的時間節約了30分鐘甚至更多。

波蘭Jagiellonian大學(Krakow, Poland)的一個外科小組，最近不使用縫線，對一例76歲患者的失去功能的主動脈瓣進行了置換。根據第一例手術的成功經驗，該小組已經對符合標準的患者置換了另外2個瓣膜。所有瓣膜植入時間都少于1分鐘，大大減少了主動脈鉗夾以及心肺分流時間。所有瓣膜工作良好。這種瓣膜叫做3F Enable主動脈心臟瓣膜，是3F集團公司(Lake Forest, CA, USA)研制開發的。

Jagiellonion大學心血管外科和移植科主任Jerzy Sadowski醫生解釋說：“在全球范圍內象我們這樣的大型手術中心，絕大多數瓣膜置換病人在接受心臟瓣膜置換手術的同時，還要進行冠狀動脈分流移植手術。單次或者多次血管移植是十分耗時的工作。在單個病例中聯合進行這兩項手術是本項研究的主要目標。標準機械或者組織瓣膜需要我花30分鐘來縫合。而這種新型3F產品使得我在不到50秒的時間內達到相同的目標。

這種受保護的3F工藝技術是以管狀瓣膜概念為基礎的產品，使其成為創傷性較小的手術，可以用于主動脈瓣和二尖瓣置換手術。

Sutureless Replacement Heart Valve
 
A new aortic heart valve is designed to eliminate the need for a surgeon to suture the device into the aortic annulus of the patient, saving around 30 minutes or more of cardiopulmonary bypass time.

Using no stitches, a surgical team at Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland) recently replaced the failing aortic heart valve of a 76-year-old patient. Based on the success of the first implant, the team implanted two additional valves in patients meeting the selection criteria. All valves required less than one minute of implantation positioning time, with dramatic reduction of aorta cross-clamp time and cardiopulmonary bypass time. All valves were fully competent. Called the 3F Enable aortic heart valve, the new valve was developed by 3F Therapeutics, Inc. (Lake Forest, CA, USA).

“In major surgical centers like ours around the world, most of these valve replacement patients also have coronary artery bypass graft surgery at the same time their heart valves are replaced,” explained Dr. Jerzy Sadowski, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the department of cardiovascular surgery and transplantology at Jagiellonion University. “Single or multiple vessel grafting is also time consuming, and the combination of these operations into a single case is the larger target of this research endeavor. A standard mechanical or tissue heart valve takes me about 30 minutes to suture in place. This new 3F product allowed me to achieve the same result in less than 50 seconds.”

The patented technologies of 3F Therapeutics, based on a tubular valve concept, lend themselves to minimally invasive surgery and will be applicable to both aortic and mitral valve replacement.