Factors leading to premature tissue valve failure Accelerated failure of biological valve replacements due to diabetes, atherosclerosis, metabolic syndrome, hypercholesterolemia and patient-prosthesis mismatch puts patients at risk.1-5 Recently published studies describe a variety of conditions common in patients with heart valve disease that can cause early tissue valve failure. Diabetes is a 3X higher risk [...]

Improved mortality for mechanical valve patients Several recent clinical trials provide evidence of superior durability, reoperation rates and mortality for mechanical valve recipients compared to biological valve recipients.1-9 Matched study results favor mechanical valves In an abstract presented earlier this year at the Society of Thoracic Surgery, Weber, et al., of Switzerland offered the following [...]

Long Term Results of the On-X® Prosthetic Heart Valve: Continued Low Complication Rates Now in use for 15 years, two recent 10+ year reports show the continued low complication rates that benefit On-X valve patients. Reliable performance in a worldwide population Recent clinical presentations at the Society for Heart Valve Disease in Barcelona in June [...]

The Ignored Benefits of Anticoagulant Drugs In an aging population, anticoagulant drugs provide benefits that are often ignored in favor of repeated valve operations. Benefits of Warfarin Current heart valve selection criteria is heavily weighted toward tissue valve implants even when an increasing number of randomized or matched clinical studies show the risks of reoperation [...]

On-X Heart Valves outperform tissue valves in a matched study On-X® Prosthetic Heart Valve patients in a prospective study matched to patients implanted with tissue valves showed a definite advantage in mortality.1 The On-X® Prosthetic Heart Valve provides lower mortality Study results reported at the recent Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) meeting in San Diego, [...]

AVR with mechanical prostheses in middle-aged patients “ . . . patients who had undergone aortic valve replacement with BP [bioprosthetic] valves faced a significantly higher risk of valve failure and reoperation.”–conclude the authors of a recent prospective, randomized clinical trial publication comparing mechanical and tissue valve performance. Study summary From 1995 to 2003 in [...]

Does the On-X Pure Carbon Valve behave like a mechanical or tissue valve? Results of an intermediate term study of 737 Canadian patients show decreased risk with the On-X® Prosthetic Heart Valve.1 A study published in the November 2010 issue of The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery found approximately 30% improvement in aortic valve [...]

The advantage of mechanical over tissue prostheses in mitral patients A comprehensive study of mitral valve repair vs. mitral valve replacement reveals that the least acceptable outcomes occur in tissue valve mitral replacement patients. Clinicians at Duke University in North Carolina published a study that shows an expected advantage in survival for patients with mitral [...]

Criteria for modification of prosthesis choice Do transapical and percutaneous aortic valve technologies represent the ideal prostheses? Will they ever? Risks of increased surgical mortality and morbidity rates in elderly aortic valve replacement patients and the need to effectively treat these patients has led to new product development of less invasive treatment options. Among the [...]