Polyvalve polymer heart valve prosthesis

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Polyvalve | Polymeric Prosthetic Heart Valve for Life

Region:

Europe

Financed by

"Creative Chemistry for a Sustainable Future."
The Interreg project Polyvalve is mainly concentrated on conducting medical research regarding artificial heart valves, aiming at providing long life, tailor-made heart valve prostheses using coated biomedical polyurethane. For this, Euregional cooperation is necessary.

Context

Among cardiovascular diseases, valvular heart diseases affect up to 13% of people over 75 years. The only available treatment is heart valve replacement, either with mechanical or biological prostheses. However, currently available prostheses are associated with major complications or they deteriorate with time, which severely impacts patients’ quality of life.

To tackle these issues, innovative polymers were investigated as potential heart valve materials.

This project has a strong innovative character as new heart valves will be manufactured, using innovative modern technologies, such as 3D printing. Partners in this project invest in research, staff costs and investing in technical materials and innovative instruments, such as a 3D printer. Expected results of the project are to manufacture modified heart valves, to create an individualized approach to patients who suffer from valvular heart disease and to produce heart valve material by using innovate 3D printing technology.

Objectives

To provide modified surface polyurethane polymers for prosthetic valve materials coating, with excellent mechanical properties, longer durability and biocompatibility.
To provide an individualized approach to patients based on patient-specific 3D valvular modelling.
To manufacture a precise leaflet geometric pattern that matches the heart valve dimensions with the use of 3D valvular models and 3D-printing technology.
To provide high-end procedures for the testing of long-term hemocompatibility of coating surfaces with defined geometries subjected to heart-flow conditions.
To provide a rapid and reproducible valve fabrication process for industrial uses.