Descriptions of the presence of blood vessels in the valves of human hearts vary. Using routine histological, injection, and clearing techniques, the majority of authors have described vessels in the attached portion of the cusp, but differ on the incidence of this observation and its relation to completely normal histological valve structure. Thus Gross (1921) demonstrated blood vessels in 6 p...

Although artificial prostheses for diseased heart valves have been around for several decades, viable heart valve replacements have yet to be developed due to their complicated nature. The majority of research in heart valve replacement technology seeks to improve decellularization techniques for porcine valves or bovine pericardium as an effort to improve current clinically used valves. The dr...

BACKGROUND The tissue-engineered (TE) heart valve was developed to improve the durability of tissue heart valves. The aim of this study was to evaluate morphological and histological changes in a TE heart valve consisting of decellularized porcine matrices seeded with viable autologous vascular endothelial cells (AVEC). MATERIAL/METHODS TE valves were implanted into the right ventricular outf...

Due to the increasing number of heart valve diseases, there is an urgent clinical need for off-the-shelf tissue engineered heart valves. While significant progress has been made toward improving the design and performance of both mechanical and tissue engineered heart valves (TEHVs), a human implantable, functional, and viable TEHV has remained elusive. In animal studies so far, the implanted T...

In this review, the anatomy and structure of the aortic valve and its prostheses are comprehensively discussed. Cardiac anatomy and function, human heart valves and their prostheses are also extensively discussed. The current status of prosthetic heart valves along with the next generation of these devices is broadly deliberated. Ather promising options such astranscatheter technologies (percut...

Reference to this organ, which perhaps was not commonplace in the scientific literature 15 years ago, has become exceedingly prevalent in the past 5 years. The field of heart valve research has become contemporary due to a heightened awareness of the seriousness and frequency of heart valve disease. Indeed, valve therapies are still extremely limited for patients above the age of 75 or less tha...

Currently-used mechanical and biological heart valve prostheses have several disadvantages. Mechanical prostheses, based on carbon, metallic and polymeric components, require permanent anticoagulation treatment, and their usage often leads to adverse reactions, e.g. thromboembolic complications and endocarditis. Xenogenous and allogenous biological prostheses are associated with immune reaction...

The cardiovascular system is a closed circulatory system that ensures blood flow through the human body. Blood circulates through two systems; the first is responsible for pushing blood from the heart to the lungs to capture oxygen, and the second is responsible for distributing oxygenated blood to body organs. This system is composed of a double pump with branched tubes that leads blood from t...