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Tissue engineering of heart valves
open-in-new
<p>Tissue engineered heart valves (TEHV) offer a new and advancing proposed treatment of creating a living heart valve for people who are in need of either a full or partial heart <a href="/facts/Heart_valve_replacement/xlGuzbAx">valve replacement</a>. Currently, there are over a quarter of a million prosthetic heart valves implanted annually, and the number of patients requiring replacement surgeries is only suspected to rise and even triple over the next fifty years. While current treatments offered such as <a href="/facts/Mechanical_valve/qUuLILfm">mechanical valves</a> or <a href="/facts/Bioprosthetic_heart_valve/qUuLILfm">biological valves</a> are not deleterious to one's health, they both have their own limitations in that mechanical valves necessitate the lifelong use of anticoagulants while biological valves are susceptible to structural degradation and reoperation. Thus, <i>in situ</i> (in its original position or place) tissue engineering of heart valves serves as a novel approach that explores the use creating a living heart valve composed of the host's own cells that is capable of growing, adapting, and interacting within the human body's biological system. </p><p>Research has not yet reached the stage of clinical trials. </p>