Integrity and viability of homograft valves.

Since it has been suggested that the leaflet tissue viability influences durability after homologous valve replacement, we compared different harvest and preservation techniques in order to examine the quality and smoothness of homograft conservation. We analyzed human aortic and pulmonary valve leaflets obtained from «heart-beating donors» (HBD) during heart transplantation and from «non-heart-beating donors» (NHBD) during coroner's autopsies. Valves were either cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen or stored at 4 °C in nutrient medium similar to the procedure reported in our protocols of the homograft bank system. All grafts from NHBD had been antibiotically sterilized for 3 days beforehand