Overall, the chordal insertion site had little influence on the tension in the artificial neochordae compared with the interindividual variation. However, abnormal tension fluctuations in the transapically fixated neochordae might predispose to leaflet tears and early repair failure.

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BackgroundCoronary Wave Intensity Analysis (cWIA) is a technique capable of separating the effects of proximal arterial haemodynamics from cardiac mechanics. Studies have identified WIA-derived indices that are closely correlated with several disease processes and predictive of functional recovery following myocardial infarction. The cWIA clinical application has, however, been limited by technical challenges including a lack of standardization across different studies and the derived indices' sensitivity to the processing parameters. Specifically, a critical step in WIA is the noise removal for evaluation of derivatives of the acquired signals, typically performed by applying a Savitzky–Golay filter, to reduce the high frequency acquisition noise.MethodsThe impact of the filter parameter selection on cWIA output, and on the derived clinical metrics (integral areas and peaks of the major waves), is first analysed. The sensitivity analysis is performed either by using the filter as a differentiator to calculate the signals' time derivative or by applying the filter to smooth the ensemble-averaged waveforms.Furthermore, the power-spectrum of the ensemble-averaged waveforms contains little high-frequency components, which motivated us to propose an alternative approach to compute the time derivatives of the acquired waveforms using a central finite difference scheme.Results and ConclusionThe cWIA output and consequently the derived clinical metrics are significantly affected by the filter parameters, irrespective of its use as a smoothing filter or a differentiator. The proposed approach is parameter-free and, when applied to the 10 in-vivo human datasets and the 50 in-vivo animal datasets, enhances the cWIA robustness by significantly reducing the outcome variability (by 60%).

DOA-treated heart valves demonstrated greater recellularization and less calcification compared with standard glutaraldehyde-treated valves 6 months after implantation in the aortic position in pigs. DOA-treated heart valves demonstrated less calcification compared with standard glutaraldehyde-treated valves by qualitative analysis. Endothelial and fibroblast recellularization of the cusps was only observed in DOA-treated valves.

This study is the first to assess the magnitude and time course of the longitudinal force transmitted through the papillary-chordal complex to the left ventricular wall during ejection. The study also demonstrates a significant force transfer to the closing force acting on the mitral valve leaflets that constitutes an essential component of valvular-ventricular interaction to enhance left ventricular systolic pump performance. The magnitude of the combined papillary muscle force component emphasizes the crucial role of preserving mitral valve-left ventricular continuity in mitral valve surgery.

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Background Attention towards optimization of mitral valve repair methods is increasing. Patch augmentation is one strategy utilized to correct functional mitral regurgitation or systolic anterior motion in complex mitral valve repairs. This article describes a system for investigating the redistribution of chordae tendineae tension as a reflection of altered stress distribution of the valve leaflet following patch augmentation. Methods and materials An in vitro test setup was constructed to hold native porcine mitral valves containing an annulus and papillary muscle positioning system. The alterations caused by patch augmentation should be visual from both the atrial and ventricular views. Ventricular pressure was regulated stepwise in a range of 0-150 mmHg. To test the system, the anterior mitral leaflet was extended by a pericardial patch sutured to the mid/basal part of the leaflet, and the chordae tendineae force was measured as the ventricular pressure was applied. Results The system demonstrated the capacity to hold native porcine mitral valves and introducing patch repairs according to clinical practice. The porcine mitral valve test setup indicated strong correlation between the forces in the mitral valve secondary chordae tendineae and the applied transvalvular pressure (R2 = 0.95). Conclusion This test setup proved the ability to obtain normal mid-systolic mitral valve function, secondary chordae force measurements, and important preservation of the visual access: Hence, obtaining the pressure-force relationship as well as identifying any shift of the secondary chordae insertion point on the anterior leaflet relative to the coaptation zone was made possible.