US 11,717,402 B2
Leaflet/cuff attachment compliance for improved durability
Kristen T. Morin, St. Paul, MN (US); Jay Reimer, Saint Paul, MN (US); Keith T. High, White Bear Lake, MN (US); and Kristopher Henry Vietmeier, Monticello, MN (US)
Assigned to St. Jude Medical, Cardiology Division, Inc., St. Paul, MN (US)
Filed by St. Jude Medical, Cardiology Division, Inc., St. Paul, MN (US)
Filed on Apr. 27, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/241,363.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/026,962, filed on May 19, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2021/0361419 A1, Nov. 25, 2021
Int. Cl. A61F 2/24 (2006.01)
CPC A61F 2/2418 (2013.01) [A61F 2220/0075 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A prosthetic heart valve, comprising:
an expandable stent having an inflow end, an outflow end, an annulus section adjacent the inflow end, and a plurality of struts forming cells connected to one another in a plurality of annular rows around the stent;
a cuff attached to the annulus section of the stent by cuff sutures that have a plurality of stitches extending through material of the cuff and looping around the struts; and
a plurality of leaflets each having a belly attached to the cuff within an interior region of the stent, the leaflets together having a coapted position occluding the interior region of the stent and an open position in which the interior region is not occluded, the belly of each leaflet being attached to the cuff by leaflet sutures extending in a path that crosses a group of the struts in overlap zones,
wherein the each of the struts in the group of the struts is devoid of the stitches within the overlap zones, such that movement of the leaflets causes the cuff to pull away from the stent at locations within the overlap zones in a radially inward direction perpendicular to a flow direction through the prosthetic heart valve.