Semken Dressing Forceps 150mm — Cardiac Valve Surgery

Semken Dressing Forceps — 150mm Cardiac Valve Surgery

The 150mm Semken is the cardiac-valve-surgery standard — used for mitral-valve repair (the most rapidly-growing cardiac-surgical procedure as alternative to mitral-valve replacement), aortic-valve replacement (now often performed via transcatheter approach but still requiring open-surgery instrument trays for converted or hybrid cases), and the rare tricuspid and pulmonary valve operations. The 15cm length reaches the cardiac valves through the median sternotomy approach during the cross-clamped, arrested-heart phase.

The mitral-valve-repair fit

Mitral-valve repair (preserving the patient’s native valve rather than replacing it) has 90% durability at 15 years and is the preferred technique for degenerative mitral regurgitation when feasible. Repair techniques (leaflet resection, chordal transfer, neochordae construction, annuloplasty ring placement) all require precise leaflet-tissue handling. The 150mm Semken handles the friable mitral-leaflet tissue without crushing — the alternative is leaflet tearing that converts a repair into a replacement.

The hybrid-surgery context

Modern hybrid operating rooms combine surgical and catheter-based approaches for valve procedures; the 150mm Semken lives in the open-surgical conversion tray for procedures that may convert from transcatheter to open.