Biocompatibility issue of tissue engineered heart valves

Abstract

Tissue engineering is a new field of knowledge which creates the possibilities for producing bioactive cardiac prostheses that will characterize by biomechanical and morphological properties similar to native tissue. It is expected that it will be characterized by high durability, which is very important from the social and clinical point of view. The aim of the study was to compare the cytotoxic effect of enzymatic and detergent acellularization methods commonly used for the biological scaffold preparation. It seems that the use of enzymatic methods, allows efficient donor cells removal while maintaining the ability to autologous cell seeding. Heart valves bioprosthesis created using these techniques, may be a good alternative to the currently used prostheses.