Grow Your Own Heart Valve

According to an article by the American Heart Association, if you need a new heart valve you may be able to grow your own!

There are 23 patients walking around today who have received what Pascal M. Dohmen calls “tissue-engineered” valves.  Compared with patients treated with the more standard valve-replacement techniques, these patients were discharged from the hospital earlier and in better condition and their recovery time was shorter, including no fever.

Dohlmen, the head of tissue engineering research and a cardiovascular surgeon at Charite Hospital in Berlin, said that endothelial cells from a section of vein from the patient were grown on a donor valve scaffold in the laboratory.  The donor valve had been stripped of its own cells so as to provide an empty matrix for the growth of the endothelial cells.

At the end of a year, the patient’s cells have replaced the donated matrix, so that the entire structure belongs to the patient.  Consequently there is no problem with tissue rejection.

Dohlman said the process is still considered experimental.

November, 2003

Other links for this information:

American Heart Association meeting report:   http://engineering.surfwax.com/files/Tissue_Engineering.html

Article with picture:  http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/93A718C7-E879-4820-A502-BDF6DADCA7A5.htm