Biotextiles as medical implants: 16. Biotextiles as percutaneous heart valves (Woodhead Publishing Series in Textiles)

This chapter discusses the potential of textiles used as heart valve leaflet replacement material. The chapter first reviews the anatomy of the aortic valve, before describing the diseases the valve may undergo and the limits of the noninvasive technologies available to replace the faulty valve. It then presents textile valve manufacture, and the performance that can be obtained in vitro in both the short and long term. Early animal in vivo results are presented in the last section.