First Mechanical Heart Valve Keeps Tickin 38 Years Later
As I wrote earlier about the first mechanical heart valves, doctors could do little to help people with failing heart valves until 1960, when Portland heart surgeon Dr. Albert Starr and engineer Lowell Edwards introduced their mechanical heart valve. Here is a picture of a replica of the first ball-in-cage heart valve replacement that was given to me by Edwards Lifesciences.
One of the key questions patients ask me is, “How long did the early mechanical heart valves last?”
Well, below you can see scans of a Starr-Edwards heart valves from a 67-year-old Montreal woman. The valves have been functioning flawlessly 38 years after surgeons implanted them. The aortic valve is open in the left image, and the mitral valve is open in the right. The New England Journal of Medicine featured the cardiac catheterization images from the Montreal Heart Institute in its May 22 issue.
Before Starr and Edwards developed their mechanical heart valve, no patient had lived longer than three months after valve-replacement attempts. Four of Starr’s earliest patients lived more than 40 years.
Amazing!!!
Keep on tickin!
Adam Pick is the author of The Patient’s Guide To Heart Valve Surgery. This special book was designed to help patients and caregivers better understand the opportunities and potential pitfalls of heart valve replacement and heart valve repair surgery. Ultimately, this book was written to minimize patient stress and to enhance the patient’s recovery. To learn more about Adam’s heart valve surgery book, click here.
- Previous: Washington Senator, Dan Swecker, To Undergo Heart Valve Replacement Surgery
- Next: Does Grey’s Anatomy Miss Mark On Heart Surgery Reality?
Email Friend
Leave Comment
Print
Subscribe
August 19th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Dear Adam:
I am Bill Holbert a Long Time firefighter Paramedic my wife just had Aortic and Mytral valve replacements on 8/15/2008 and is doing very well she is still on a temporary pacer but only on the ventricular side I am happy to see
such an improvement in her she has better color and it is easier for her to talk and not have to catch her breath I am glad to see your page because even though i am a Medic firefighter you still wander what a patients quility of life will be for their future and as i can tell it improves things tremendously….