INTRODUCTION Aortic heart valve dysfunction is commonly treated with replacement of the valve. To overcome the shortcomings of currently used mechanical valves, xenografts and homografts, efforts are being made to create fully autologous heart valve replacements using the concepts of tissue engineering. To this end autologous cells are seeded onto pre-shaped biodegradable scaffolds and cultured...

The design and development of functional engineered tissues is dependent on multiple considerations, with biomechanics paramount for load-bearing constructs such as tissue engineered heart valves. As the cryopreserved allograft is the current standard for valve replacement in pediatric patients, identifying and quantifying essential structural–mechanical properties of the native valve leaflet i...

Heart valve anomalies are some of the most common congenital heart defects, yet neither the genetic nor the epigenetic forces guiding heart valve development are well understood. When functioning normally, mature heart valves prevent intracardiac retrograde blood flow; before valves develop, there is considerable regurgitation, resulting in reversing (or oscillatory) flows between the atrium an...

Global myocardial ischemia and ischemia-reperfusion injury are potential adverse events related with cardioplegic arrest. Beating heart surgery has avoided such complications and adapted to valve surgery following successful results published on myocardial revascularization. Difficulty in weaning from cardiopulmonary bypass may be lessened by using on-pump beating heart surgery for mitral valve...

j-Ieart size was measured radiographically before and after single or double homograft valve replacement in 69 consecutive patients. Thirty patients had aortic valve replacement, 25 mitral, and 14 both aortic and mitral valve replacement. For aortic valve replacement a fresh unsupported homograft was inserted in the subcoronary position, while for mitral valve replacement afresh semilunar homog...