Identification of the Toughness Properties of Mitral Valve Leaflets

Suturing a prosthetic ring to the mitral valve is one of the main challenges in percutaneous mitral valve annuloplasty. Novel self-anchoring fasteners developed for minimally invasive surgery may easily tear the tissue and cause their failure. Identification of the fracture toughness of the mitral valve tissue is an important step towards the optimization of these novel fasteners to minimize their deleterious effects on the surrounding tissue. Moreover, the study of rupture mechanism of the heart valve tissue can provide interesting information on the developing process of congenital mitral regurgitation due to the cleft mitral valve.Copyright © 2013 by ASME