Sathya Sai Hospital to start India's first heart valve bank

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facilitate the availability of pulmonary and aortic valves for use in cardiac

surgery. Established under the guidance of Sri Sathya Sai Baba, known the world

over for free medical treatment, the proposed bank would offer a reprieve to

economically backward patients, who develop heart valve problems as well as a

large number of hapless children, who have congenital heart conditions such as

abnormal valves or missing valves. Diseases and congenital abnormalities can

lead to defective valve function and cardiac insufficiency which need

replacement of valves. Talking to this website’s newspaper here, institute

director Dr.A.N.Safaya said the bank would become functional soon as part of

the development works initiated on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the

institute, which has earned wide reputation as a temple of

healing. According to Safaya, the hospital is planning to launch an awareness

campaign among different segments of society about the need to donate heart

valves. Heart valves, like many transplantable tissues, can be donated up to 24

hours after death. All the donated heart valves would be used to help people in

need of heart valve replacement. Heart valve donors should generally be under

60 years of age and have no evidence of transmissible disease, infection or

cancer. As per the outline, the proposed bank would first procure human hearts

from suitable donors after obtaining consent from the next of kin. Homograft

technicians with the hospital will retrieve the pulmonary and aortic valves

from the

heart and disinfect them with an antibiotic solution. The valves are then placed

in a cryopreservative solution and frozen to -140 degree centigrade in a

controlled rate liquid nitrogen freezer. The valves can be used during cardiac

surgery at the Sathya Sai Hospital or in other cardiac centres in the country.

The hospital authorities hope accident hospitals can play a vital role in the

collection of hearts which have intact valves. Such banks are needed in modern

times as human allograft valves are better as mechanical valves often cause

damage to elements of the blood, which means that patients must remain on

anticoagulant therapy for the rest of the life.

0in 0in 6pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Porcine valves are also not effective as they

are prone to calcification within 5-7 years of replacement. As per medical

experts, the human allograft valves combine good haemodynamic properties with

durability and are often resistible to infection. Then what can a donor do?

“You can choose, while you are still alive, to donate your heart valves in the

event of your death. The most important thing is that you talk to your family

about the organ and tissue donation,” say experts.

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