Specification of polyurethanes used in prosthetic heart valves

Prosthetic heart valves or PHV, are the materials that used for patients that required for heart valve substitution. PHVs classified in two main groups, the mechanical and bioprosthetics heart valves. Some problems like coagulation on the mechanical heart valves and poor durability of bioprosthetics heart valves have attracted attentions to promotion of these materials. Nowadays polymeric heart valves presented as a promising material for obviation of some problems in metallic mechanical and bioprosthetics heart valves. Biocompatibility, hemocompatibility, resistance to calcification and degradation are the main factors for polymeric heart valves. Despite some problems like calcification and degradation, polyurethanes are favorable materials for researchers in study on the fabrication of PHVs caused for their excellent mechanical properties. Calcification presented as an important challenge for biostability of polyurethanes in the prosthetics heart valves. Angioflex heart valve is a commercial Polyurethane that have not a suitable longevity caused for the calcification. In this study investigated the effect of bisphosphonate as an anticalcification agent on the angioflex PHVs.