RIBS is an innovative endovascular technology that has the potential to save lives of patients with aortic arch aneurysms who have been considered inoperable.

 

I chose a career in surgery because I wanted to dedicate my life to a profession in which I could personally save patients through my own skills and experience. Throughout my years in the operating room, I came to believe that no surgical procedure or device is ever truly perfect and there is always room for improvement. This conviction has driven me to continually refine surgical techniques while devoting myself to the development of medical devices that can improve surgical outcome.

 

An aortic aneurysm is a life-threatening disease that can be fatal if it ruptures. Traditionally, treatment has required highly invasive open surgery involving a thoracotomy and/or a laparotomy. For elderly patients and those with significant comorbidities, these procedures often impose an enormous physical burden. The introduction of endovascular stent-graft repair in the 1990s marked a paradigm shift in aortic aneurysm treatment by enabling minimally invasive repair without opening the chest or abdomen.

 

However, the treatment of aortic arch aneurysms remains one of the greatest challenges in vascular surgery. Because these aneurysms involve the supra-aortic branch vessels supplying blood to the brain and upper extremities, conventional stent-graft technology has been difficult to apply safely. Consequently, total aortic arch replacement—a highly invasive operation requiring median sternotomy, cardiopulmonary bypass, and temporary circulatory arrest—remains the standard of care.

 

As a result, many patients are told that they are not candidates for surgery. They are left with suboptimal procedure that combines standard stent-graft and neck vessel bypass surgery. In some, any treatment is denied and they must spend their remaining days living under the constant fear that their aneurysm could rupture at any moment.

 

To overcome this unmet clinical need, we developed RIBS (Retrograde In-situ Branched Stent-graft), a novel endovascular system that reconstructs the supra-aortic branches retrogradely through the carotid arteries after the stent graft has been deployed across the aortic arch from the femoral artery. This unique approach enables complete endovascular repair without the need for neck bypass, opening the chest or the use of cardiopulmonary bypass. By dramatically reducing procedural invasiveness, RIBS has the potential to offer a life-saving treatment not only for patients previously deemed inoperable, but also for those considered at prohibitively high surgical risk.

 

Together with physicians, healthcare professionals, industry partners, and investors around the world, we are committed to bringing RIBS to patients globally. Our mission is to establish a new standard of care for aortic arch aneurysm and to save the lives of countless patients who currently have suboptimal or no treatment options. We will make it happen!