A cardiac surgeon from Chennai has announced that he has designed and developed the country’s first 3-D printed heart valve.

The artificial heart valves available at present are either made of metal components or from animal tissues. Each of these has its share of disadvantages or complications, including the risk of blood clot formation, valve infection, valve failure caused by degeneration, need for long-term blood thinners, etc.

Dr Sanjay Cherian, Vice President and COO at Frontier Lifeline Hospital, stated that the novel heartvalves developed with the help of 3D printers can overcome the problems associated with artificial heart valves.

The heart valves were developed using specialized biopolymers, quite similar to human tissue, which can be directly implanted in heart patients.

Dr Cherian said that this new heart valve could be the future of cardiac surgery. It could overcome most of the disadvantages tied to the currently available artificial heart valves.

Dr Cherian developed the 3D printed heart valve along with the Centre for Automation and School of Mechanical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Chennai.

He stated that an additional advantage of this new heart valve is that its design was developed using specialized computer-assisted design software and modeling techniques, on the basis of MRI scan images of the human heart. Therefore, it is possible to customize and 3D print heart valves that can fit exactly to the dimensions of a patient′s heart.

Being a "Made in India" product, the cost of this heart valve could be much lower than the cost of imported heart valves. Dr Cherian intends to patent the heart valve, and evaluate it to determine its biocompatibility, efficacy and durability.

Source: ET Healthworld