Porcine pericardial membrane subjected to tensile testing: preliminary study of the process of selecting tissue for use in the construction of cardiac bioprostheses.

The durability of cardiac bioprostheses is limited fundamentally by structural failure due to mechanical fatigue and calcification. In the present report, we analyze, using an in vitro hydraulic simulator to test tensile strength, the mechanical behavior of porcine pericardium for the purpose of establishing the criteria for selecting the biomaterial, taking into account both morphological criteria (thickness and homogeneity of the specimens) and mechanical criteria (stress at breaking point), using the epidemiological model of paired samples. The stress at breakage was found to range widely from 24.07 MPa to 100.29 MPa, although we observed no statistically significant differences when comparing the mean results in the different regions and zones of the pericardium being studies. The application of the selection criteria in the present series resulted in an excellent mathematical fit in terms of the stress/elongation (R2 > 0.95), making it possible to establish, by means of linear regression, the prediction of the tensile strength in one zone on the basis of the values observed in its paired specimen. Copyright 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers