Prosthetic Heart Valve

A prosthetic heart valve is a one-way valve implanted in a person's heart to replace a valve that is no longer working properly, keeping blood flowing in the correct direction through the heart and into the major vessels connected to it; a dysfunctional natural valve can cause stenosis, in which blood flow is obstructed, or regurgitation, in which blood leaks backward, either of which strains the heart and can lead to heart failure. The American inventor Miles Lowell Edwards is recognized as the first to create a truly safe and effective heart valve, a caged-ball design that the surgeon Albert Starr implanted in 1960, creating the Starr-Edwards valve, which went on to be used successfully in patients worldwide for the next 47 years, with one recipient's valve lasting 48 years before it needed replacement. An earlier design implanted by Charles Hufnagel in 1952 was never proven reliable enough for widespread adoption, which is why the Starr-Edwards valve, not Hufnagel's, is generally credited as the first clinically successful prosthetic heart valve.