Professor Alain Cribier, known internationally for having developed a revolutionary technique for replacing the aortic valve in 2002, died on Friday at the age of 79, announced the Rouen University Hospital.
Former head of the cardiology department at Rouen University Hospital and honorary member of the National Academy of Medicine, Professor Alain Cribier was “known for having developed the technique of percutaneous aortic valve replacement (TAVI)”. He died Friday at the age of 79, the University Hospital announced in a press release on Saturday.
Awarded the American College of Cardiology Award
The doctor was “at the origin of three world firsts”, such as the first aortic dilation with a balloon catheter in 1985 and “valvuloplasty with a metal dilator” in 1992. But he is best known for “the first implantation of a percutaneous aortic valve”, a “revolutionary alternative treatment to major thoracic surgery, until now the only response to patients suffering from severe aortic stenosis”.
This world first, carried out in 2002 in Rouen, was the origin of a major upheaval in the treatment of aortic stenosis, a common condition among those over 65. Professor Cribier, who received the prestigious prize from the American College of Cardiology, then trained doctors in TAVI around the world.