Sutureless aortic valve prosthesis 44 years after implantation

Sutureless Aortic Valves: Combining the Best or the Worst?

Aortic valve replacement is a life saving intervention. Significant progress has been made toward reducing surgical trauma through minimally invasive surgery and transcatheter techniques. Each of these approaches has its advantages and limitations. Sutureless aortic valves have been proposed to overcome these limitations and have been in use in Europe. It is however less than clear whether these valves will prove advantageous and whether they will have a role in the future. We review the published literature for sutureless aortic valves and their performance against standard and transcatheter aortic valve replacements.