Bioprosthetic Heart Valves Get a Boost From Modeling and Flow Visualization

On Sept. 21, 1960, Dr. Albert Starr successfully implanted the world’s first “ball-in-cage” prosthetic heart valve into a patient’s mitral valve, a mechanical device that he co-invented with M. Lowell Edwards, a prominent engineer in the biomedical field. The artificial valve was a great success in the medical device industry that paved the way for numerous developments in cardiology. More than 50 years later, millions of patients’ lives have been saved or improved by the technological advancements based on the work of pioneers like Dr. Starr, Edwards, and others. Every year, more than 250,000 patients worldwide receive prosthetic heart valves and that number continues to grow.1