Patients too ill to survive lifesaving open heart surgery have been given a lifeline as doctors at St Thomas' Hospital have used new technology to complete a mitral heart valve replacement on a beating heart for the first time in the world. The heart team at St Thomas' performed three transcatheter mitral heart valve implants in February and early March. This is an operation carried out under general anaesthetic in which the heart's damaged mitral valve is replaced with an artificial valve.

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