Patient inclusion on the increase for the ESPOIR clinical study

The ESPOIR study group, comprising 7 hospitals from Hannover, Chisinau, London, Leuven, Leiden, Padua, Zurich and 4 homograft banks from Brussels, Hannover, Treviso and Rotterdam, has now reached full operative capacity. This has resulted in a steady increase in the number of patients included in the trial (Figure 1). During the ESPOIR Steering Committee Meeting at the 2015 European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS) Annual Meeting, Prof. Haverich thanked all partners for their continued support in this “unique prospective investigator-initiated trial in Europe”, the results of which are widely anticipated by many cardiothoracic surgeons.

Figure 1: Implanted decellularized pulmonary homografts up to September 2015