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geofbrown11 karma

Tissue heart valves are made out of both porcine and bovine tissue. My knowledge on this is about 10 years old, but I used to work for St. Jude Medical. SJM made/makes a valve using porcine valve leaflets, partly out of a desire to use a tissue that's designed to flap open and shut thousands of times a day for decades, and partly because using actual leaflets made for a better seal between heartbeats. Most other valves are made from bovine pericardium (tissue that holds a sac of fluid around the heart, not the heart itself). Those valves seal slightly differently between beats. Both tissues go through a chemical process that removes most of the things that might trigger rejection. At any rate, surgically placed valves where they actually open the chest to make the implant are a fairly mature technology with very similar outcomes across the board--my guess is the surgeon chose a valve that is available in the appropriate size for OP, and then let intangibles like ease of implantation drive choices from there.

Still in the process of development are valves delivered via catheter--most of the big players have ones for the aortic valve, a few also have them for the pulmonary valve. But size is a constraint, anatomy (like vessel size/tortuousity leading to the heart from (usually) the groin) has an impact, and there is an increased risk for patients to need a permanent pacemaker post-implant. I'll be interested to see what happens in the next 10 years--stem-cells sprayed onto a 3D-printed matrix may essentially allow implantation of a valve that is essentially a clone of your original before it started to malfunction.

OH, and OP--you may wind up on blood thinners anyway. The dirty little secret of tissue valves is that something like 40% (don't quote me, it's been a long time) of all tissue valve patients wind up on blood thinners for life. If that happens, don't worry too much--it's a pain in the ass but totally doable. Best of luck!