When BDC Laboratories teamed up with the Dilawri Cardiovascular Institute (DCI) last year, we had a shared commitment to lead the way in cardiovascular innovation by enhancing the development and clinical validation of cardiovascular medical devices.
That work happens within DCI's Centre for Cardiovascular Translational Science, which acts as a hub for device testing and simulation, with a particular focus on transcatheter heart valve technologies. BDC Laboratories supported this initiative by equipping DCI with its HDTi-6000 heart valve pulse duplicator test system — a repeatable, reproducible, and adaptable platform built to simulate real-world clinical conditions with regulatory-grade precision.
This partnership has resulted in emerging research from DCI, in collaboration with several hospitals and research centres. Below are two studies, published in Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Interventions this year, that highlight some of the work DCI is doing with BDC’s equipment that could translate into meaningful, clinically relevant outcomes that advance cardiovascular care.
As more patients outlive their first transcatheter valve, physicians increasingly need to place a new valve inside a failed one. A potential complication of this procedure is coronary obstruction. One way to prevent this is leaflet modification: deliberately splitting the old valve's leaflet so blood can still reach the coronary arteries. This bench study looks at how real-world conditions affect the splay that modification creates.
Across platforms (Evolut, SAPIEN, Acurate neo2, Navitor, and Evolut FX+), the conclusion was that modifiability depends on design. Results from one frame design cannot be extrapolated to another, and frame geometry and leaflet length determine whether a valve can be reopened later.
Prior bench studies measured leaflet splay in static air, effectively treating the leaflet as adopting a fixed open position. By mounting the modified valves in the HDTi-6000 pulse duplicator under both pulsatile and steady flow, the study demonstrated that leaflet position was more variable under physiologic flow than static testing would suggest. Splay varied depending on which phase of the cardiac cycle the leaflet was caught in, with the most variability under pulsatile flow at the greatest annular constraint.
Interestingly, flow did not simply reduce leaflet splay. In some valve designs, particularly Navitor, dynamic flow produced greater apparent splay than static testing, but it also introduced leaflet prolapse through the frame. Notably, testing with the BDC HDTi-6000 was the first to demonstrate the potential risk of leaflet prolapse following LLAMACONR, an emerging leaflet modification strategy. This finding highlights the value of dynamic testing for revealing clinically relevant behaviors that may not be observable on a static bench.
A companion study turned the same question toward the other valves physicians modify: native calcified aortic valves and surgical bioprosthetic valves (SAVs). The team characterized 100 calcific native valves and seven types of surgical bioprostheses, then modified a stratified subset, 13 native cusps and 14 SAV leaflets, to measure splay, laceration patterns, and embolic debris.
Calcification in the native valves was near-universal in the regions that matter, appearing in 89% of traversal zones and 97% of laceration zones. Encouragingly, modification remained feasible across a wide range of calcification in both native and surgical valves, but that feasibility came with caveats that scaled with calcium load.
Surgical valves behaved differently. Their neoskirt heights and construction varied by model, and the response to expansion was specific to each valve type. The overarching message is that the architecture of a given valve shapes how well it modifies.
Looking ahead, BDC and DCI are working on new innovations to further this research and provide additional hydrodynamic and procedural insights into native and degenerated valve modification.
These studies represent just a few examples of the important work underway at DCI to bridge the gap between bench and bedside, advancing cardiovascular therapies through clinically relevant research.
BDC Laboratories is proud to support these efforts by providing the testing platforms that help generate meaningful, evidence-based insights that accelerate next-generation cardiovascular device development.
Learn more about the HDTi-6000 heart valve pulse duplicator system.
BDC Laboratories offers testing services and products that aid in the mechanical and functional evaluation of Class II and Class III medical device technologies for regulatory submission. From bioprosthetic valve testing and equipment to silicone vascular models, BDC supports innovation from early R&D through go-to-market.
The Dilawri Cardiovascular Institute (DCI) is a cardiovascular research, innovation, education, medical technology, and clinical care institute based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is affiliated with Vancouver General Hospital and the University of British Columbia, and is embedded within the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute (VCHRI). The institute is the successor organization to the Division of Cardiology at Vancouver General Hospital, which has operated since the mid-1950s.
Established in 2025 following a philanthropic donation from the Dilawri Foundation, DCI unites cardiovascular clinical services, research programs, medical education, and health technology and innovation initiatives under a single organizational structure. As of 2026, the institute consists of 16 centres focused on different areas of cardiovascular medicine and research.