Biologically active replacement heart valves (tissue engineered, recellularized xenograft) offer enhanced function compared to current valve therapies by possessing the capacity for remodeling and growth to meet the hemodynamic needs of the patient and eliminating the need for chronic medication. However, many fundamental questions remain as to how these valves will function in vivo, and new in vitro tools need to be created to address these questions. Traditional in vitro heart valve testing devices (mock flow loops) are designed to subject valves to physiologic and pathologic hemodynamic conditions. These devices offer a heart valve designer a useful tool with which to evaluate the mechanical functioning of their device in a variety of well-controlled hemodynamic situations. Unfortunately, these devices have not been designed for testing valves built of biologically active materials which require proper nutrient and waste exchange, pH, temperature, and freedom from attacks by microbial organisms in order to function. Pulsatile bioreactors have been developed to provide the aforementioned biological requirements to developing tissue engineered valves [1, 2], but these systems offer very limited hemodynamic control in comparison to mock flow loops. Therefore, in order to better understand the role of hemodynamics in the function of biologically active heart valves (BAHV), and to thereby create better BAHV designs, a new type of pulsatile bioreactor should be created that also incorporates more of the hemodynamic control found in mock circulatory loops. This thesis details the both the development of such a device and evaluating its functionality.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-11212003-171437 |
| Date | 02 February 2004 |
| Creators | Hildebrand, Daniel Kenneth |
| Contributors | Sanjeev Shroff, Michael Sacks, James Antaki |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-11212003-171437/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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