Long-term results of mechanical and biological heart valves in dialysis and non-dialysis patients.

INTRODUCTION: We wanted to answer the question whether biological heart valves are inferior compared to mechanical heart valves in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients. METHODS: Between 01/1996 und 12/2006, 44 of 3293 patients undergoing aortic valve replacement (AVR) in a single institution suffered from dialysis-dependent ESRD and underwent a follow-up investigation after 1.9 years (median). Twelve (28.9 %) of these patients received a biological, 32 (71.1 %) of these patients a mechanical aortic valve prosthesis. To evaluate a possible influence of the valve type (biological/mechanical) on survival, uni- and multivariate logistic regression was used. RESULTS: ESRD patients after AVR had a relatively poor short-term (30-day mortality: 22.7 %) and long-term survival (median survival time: 24.7 months; 95 % CI: 0.2-47.7 months), irrespective of the type of heart valve prosthesis (hazard ratio for mortality depending on heart valve type in dialysis patients: 1.31, P = 0.400). Dialysis-dependent patients were not reoperated due to valve-related reasons. CONCLUSIONS: The long-term survival of dialysis-dependent patients after AVR is low (5-year survival: 29.5 %) irrespective of the type of heart valve prosthesis. Therefore, the use of biological AVR is not contraindicated in this group of patients.