Hydrodynamic Comparison Between the New Tiltingdisc Aortic Valve Prosthesis (Bjork-Shiley) and the Corresponding Prostheses of Starr-Edwards, Kay-Shiley, Smeloff-Cutter and Wada-Cutter in the Pulse Duplicator
Four commonly used aortic valve prostheses, Starr-Edwards, Kay-Shiley, Smeloff-Cutter and WadaCutter, were tested in a pulse duplicator system and compared to the new Bjork-Shiley tilting disc valve prosthesis. For a given tissue diameter, the Bjork-Shiley valve had the lowest pressure difference (2.5 mm Hg) at a valve flow of 220 ml/sec. Visualization of the flow through the Bjork-Shiley valve demonstrated that the major portion of the stream passed it laminarly. This did not occur in any of the other valves. With the exception of the WadaCutter valve, all valves had low degrees of regurgitation.