In the development of heart valves there have been many things that didn't pan out. You have to remember that before 1960, if your valve could not be repaired- you died on the table. My first valve just lasted a couple of years, but at least I lived to get another one. At the time, many surgeons wanted to give up on valve surgery because they lost so many pts. As I posted before, one person who had a repair by my doctor the years before my surgery, stated that of the 7 children who had heart surgery the week he did, only 1 other went home. It is very hard on the surgeon to see pts. die. One only has to look at the case of the brilliant pediatric surgeon from Arkansas who killed hmself because he felt he had failed some children who died.
So if you think that St Judes is a heartless company that thinks only about profits, you are misinformed. First of all, the mistake cost them dearly! When Bjork-Shiley made a change to their valve for improved flow, it was manufactured
with strut welds that were defective and it put the company out of business because of the lawsuits. I have read where Dr. Shiley became very depressed about all the pts. that died. I would bet that the researchers at St Judes who were trying to reduce pt. infection rates
with the silver coating idea, were horrified with what happened and I do have sympathy
for them and the company. There other valves that had fatal outcomes. Many of the single disc valves, had disc escape in to the blood stream, resulting in sure death.
Tissue valve- their development did not go without some horrible losses, valves that fell apart in a matter of months!
Then there was that crazy Frenchmen, who want to stick bovine parts in to people hearts
- Wow I bet that went over big when he announced that stupid idea!
The rest is history.
You never know what is going to work in the long run.
What is the ?Best valve?(trying to get thread back on track)? Is a little like asking what is the best ice cream, car, teacher, color?????etc, etc. When I had my third
Surgery in 1982, my surgeon could have gone with the new kid on the block, St Judes.
He decided against it, because with twice as many moving parts, twice as many things could go wrong and no one had demonstrated it had superior flow characteristics. He could have gone with the new and improved Bjork-Shiley CC(the one with the bad welds), but he was more like Marty, he would let someone else try the new valve- after all he had already tried 2 new ones on me and figured I had paid my dues! So I got the old tried-and-true Bjork-Shiley 60 degree valve. Was it the best valve? It was certainly
better than the CC type, maybe not as good as the St. Judes- but as my team at CCF decided during my last surgery- ?any valve that is in place and doing well should be left
there.? For my other valve, they put in a Carbo-Medic. They couldn?t put the St Judes
Regent in that position. Could they have put a ATS or ON-X in? I?m sure if they felt one or the other was clearly a superior valve, they could have called up one of the companies and they would have sent a chartered jet and a team of surgeon to get CCF to try their valve. Like Marty, my previous surgeon Dr. Kay, the team at CCF will take a wait and see approach. That way, you might not get what may prove to be the best valve
of the future, but a sure thing right now- and hopefully not a defective product.
The ?best valve?? What are your criteria? The longest lasting valve is the Starr-Edwards; some of them are approaching 40 years. It will be 15 years before any St. Judes will match that! I?m sure the St. Judes will and more. One poster had an old Kay valve that had been in place for 32 years and doing fine- hard to argue that is not the ?best valve? for that poster. It will take years to sort out the answer to this question and I?ll be
willing to bet by the time they know which one is clearly superior (if they ever do), it will
replaced by something even better.
Get a surgeon you trust, let him make the call based on which valve he feels the most skilled at implanting.
