Tissue-engineered heart valves: intra-operative protocol.

Tissue engineering of heart valves investigates the possibility to create a fully compatible and biomimetic graft able to provide host cell repopulation like the native living valve. Decellularized aortic and pulmonary valves and synthetic polymers have been used to promote the creation of a native-like scaffold suitable to be colonized by cells either in vitro, in dynamic bioreactors or in vivo using different animal models. The herein presented research provides the intra-operative protocol and details of surgical technique. Porcine aortic valve conduits were decellularized and implanted in the right ventricular outflow tract of Vietnamese pigs.