Flexible valve rotator

摘要

A heart valve prosthesis rotator having a flexible drive for flexibly turning a heart valve. One embodiment has a shaft constructed from elastically deformable metal alloy such as super elastic nickel-titanium alloy. Another embodiment has a shaft constructed of surgical tubing. Yet another embodiment also has an annealed stainless steel shaft which can be bent by the surgeon interoperatively. The shaft will retain its shape after bending. Surrounding the shaft is a drive coil which connects a rotator head at a proximal end of the shaft to a drive knob at a distal end of the shaft and adjacent a handle. By turning the drive knob, a surgeon can turn the rotator head, thus orienting the prosthetic heart valve. Torsional motion is carried along the path defined by the bendable shaft so that the rotator head can be turned without displacing the handle of the heart valve rotator.