Abstract

The use of aortic valve homograft has been developed since 1962 when Ross and Barratt - Boyes independently replaced a diseased aortic valve with an orthotopically inserted homograft valve. And also surgical treatment of complex congenital cardiac malformations utilizing homograft extracardiac conduit has been tried with better result than any other prosthetic material. The present study was undertaken to clarify the safety tissue viability, sterility, after following our protocol of procurement of heart, dissection of aortic and pulmonic homograft, sterilization, cryopreservation, thawing and dilution, and transplantation on experimental animal, sheep. Tissue viability of valve and great artery was assessed by tissue culture. Sterility was evaluated by bacterial and fungal culture. The method used was proven no deleterious effect on the integrity of the valve. Tissue culture of valve tissue before, and after cryopreservation process resulted that active fibroblast growth was observed from homograft sterilized with antibiotics. And culture of the transplanted homograft from sacrificed animal showed active fibroblast growth. Pathologic examination of implanted valve tissue from sacrificed sheep showed mild calcification and minor change, but there were moderate and severe calcification of wall of great arteries.

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