In vitro pressure drop comparison between two mechanical valve prostheses

An hemodynamic evaluation of two mechanical heart valves is presented. A tilting disc valve and a bileaflet valve were incorporated in a mock circulatory system which consists of a closed flow loop with a pneumatically driven flexible diaphragm to simulate the physiologic pulsatile flow. Comparisons between the valves were made on the aortic pressure, ventricular pressure, as well as mean pressure gradient at a systolic duration of 45% and a heart rate of 90 beats per minute. The results showed that the tilting disc valve has higher ventricular pressure and mean pressure gradient than that of the bileaflet valve. This indicates that the tilting disc valve has higher transvalvular flow resistance and energy loss than that of the bileaflet valve. From this study it is demonstrated that the mock circulatory system can be a very useful device to evaluate the prosthetic heart valves in vitro.