I have been following the percutaneous valve replacements for a while, there are alot of really good videos from the past couple AATS conferences by the surgeons that have been doing them, and You can watch them online, they have quite a bit of info on how many patients get them, the success rate, failure rate how they are doing so far ect this is where many of the other doctors not involved in the trials learn about them and some of the seession you can even listen to the Q&A following thepresentations. . They currently are doing the aortic valve (Sapien) trials in the US for them too, the Pulmonary valve (melody) has already gotten FDA approval. I've talked to doctors at Boston Childrens and CHOP/U of P that (UofP is part of the Sapien trials) about both valves and I have NOT heard the Aortic are only lasting 5 years. I believe they have only been doing them about 5 years, maybe thats what they meant? The pulmonary valves (which for the most part are going in kids/young adults who are very active) have been around about 10 years. They have already replaced percutaneous pulmonary valves, with new percutaneous valves but most are still going strong. Part of the reason, in the US at least, they are only being used in older people who are not candidates for OHS is prettty much because it is a trial and often when there already is a medical procedure with good results, acceptable morbidity/mortality, theydo trials on patients that could not survive the normal procedure and with out the trial would not survive long. The pulmonary valves didn't have the same criteria, mainly because the people that need pulmonaryvalve replacements are kids/adults with CHD and already had 1 or more surgery as a baby/child.
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