A 44-year experience of prosthetic heart valve implantation at Niigata University Hospital.

Based on a single hospital experience of heart valve implantation from 1965 to 2009, the superiority of prosthetic heart valves including Starr-Edwards caged ball valves, Omniscience aortic tilting disc valves, and St. Jude Medical bileaflet valves are reviewed. This review discusses the prominent antithrombogenicity of the Starr-Edwards model 1200 aortic prosthesis under selected conditions, the relatively rarely thrombosed (despite its decreased opening angle) Omniscience aortic valve, the long-term outcomes 10 as well as 30 years after St. Jude Medical valve replacement, and finally the latest results on the significance of patient-aortic prosthesis mismatch in relation to myocardial hypertrophy. The findings described here should be considered in further investigations of cardiac valve prostheses.