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(Circulation. 2005;111:2715-2716.)
© 2005 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorial

Regenerative Medicine Approach to Heart Valve Replacement

Stephen F. Badylak, DVM, MD, PhD

From the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Correspondence to Stephen F. Badylak, McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, 100 Technology Dr, Suite 200, Pittsburgh, PA 15219. E-mail badylaks@upmc.edu

Key Words: Editorials • valves • stem cells

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

Approximately 275 000 patients receive a heart valve replacement annually. Their choices and the choices of their surgeons are limited to either a metal valve replacement or a preserved (typically allogeneic or xenogeneic) tissue valve replacement. These patients are then subject to the morbidity associated with anticoagulation when mechanical valves are used or the limited durability of a biological prosthesis with the prospect of replacement surgery. An off-the-shelf heart valve with the durability of metal valves and the biocompatibility of biological valves would likely receive immediate and widespread acceptance.

See p 2783

Metal heart valves have experienced a series of transformations since the Lucite ball valve and the silicone caged ball valve of the 1950s and 1960s. Thromboembolic complications with these valves led to the development of a variety of disk valves including the Björk-Shiley, the Lillehei-Kaster, and the St. Jude bileaflet valve. Superior hemodynamic characteristics were possible with these disk valve designs as compared with the caged ball valves, but the need for life-long anticoagulation still existed.

The field of regenerative medicine has invested significant resources to create blood vessels, functional myocardium, and heart valves, but these efforts have yet to be translated into the clinical setting. Early attempts to engineer a heart valve leaflet from synthetic resorbable polymers seeded with endothelial cells and fibroblasts showed promise, but problems with calcification and deformation during remodeling were seen.^1,2

The first successful translation of a regenerative medicine approach to reconstruction of the pulmonary artery and vena cava was recently reported by . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Related Article:

From Stem Cells to Viable Autologous Semilunar Heart Valve

Fraser W.H. Sutherland, Tjorvi E. Perry, Ying Yu, Megan C. Sherwood, Elena Rabkin, Yutaka Masuda, G. Alejandra Garcia, Dawn L. McLellan, George C. Engelmayr, Jr, Michael S. Sacks, Frederick J. Schoen, and John E. Mayer, Jr
Circulation 2005 111: 2783-2791. [Abstract] [Full Text]

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