Despite the significant advances in cardiac surgery, heart valve replacement still faces a
dilemma. While mechanical valves offer lifelong durability they also commit patients to …

Surgical replacement with artificial devices has revolutionised the care of patients with
severe valvular diseases. Mechanical valves are very durable, but require long-term …

Bioprostheses, composed of chemically treated animal tissue and termed heterografts or
xenografts, are the most widely used type of substitute heart valve. Their major limitation is …

Calcification plays a major role in the failure of bioprosthetic and other tissue heart valve
substitutes. Tissue valve calcification is initiated primarily within residual cells that have …

Attempts to replace diseased human valves with prostheses began more than 30 yrs ago.
Heart valve prostheses can be broadly classified into mechanical prostheses (made out of …

Biochemical, histological and genetic studies using in vitro/in vivo models have
demonstrated that pathological calcification of bioprosthetic heart valves (BHV) is regulated …

Valve replacement is the main therapy for valvular heart disease, in which a diseased valve
is replaced by mechanical heart valve (MHV) or bioprosthetic heart valve (BHV). Since the …

Bioprosthetic heart valves are widely used because of their low risk of thromboembolic
complications. The major limitation to the longterm success of these prostheses is caused by …

The use of bioprosthetic valves fabricated from fixed heterograft tissue (porcine aortic valves
or bovine pericardium) in heart valve replacement surgery is limited because of calcification …

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has the advantages of less trauma and faster
postoperative recovery, which has brought the possibility to the elderly patient with valvular …