About our research work

In the study "Aortic Valve Replacement using Individualized Regenerative Allografts: Bridging the Therapeutic Gap" (ARISE), which has been funded by the European Union (EU) with five million euros for four years since 2015, cardiac surgeons led by Hannover Medical School are investigating a new aortic valve replacement that is not rejected and lasts longer. In addition to the MHH, five other leading European heart centers are taking part in the study. A total of 120 patients are being treated.

The study uses the principle of the decellularized heart valve, which has already been used in the ESPOIR study since 2012 for the pulmonary artery valve (pulmonary valve). "We first tested the pulmonary valve because the pressure on the aortic valve, through which the heart pumps blood from the left ventricle into the aorta, is three times higher than in the right ventricle. In addition, the origins of the coronary arteries lie directly behind the aortic valve. This makes implanting an aortic valve much more complicated than implanting a pulmonary valve," explains Prof. Dr. Axel Haverich, Head of the Clinical Department of Cardiac, Thoracic, Transplantation and Vascular Surgery (HTTG) at MHH and coordinator of ARISE.

Decellularized "homografts" are human donor heart valves. Using the decellularization process, which is carried out in special laboratories of Corlife, a company that emerged from the MHH, all cells from the donor are removed so that only the scaffold made of the supporting substance collagen remains.

In addition to the ARISE project, a collaborative project between the Clinical Departments of Paediatric Cardiology and HTTG began in July 2016 to set up an "LVOT" database, in which patients who have received a decellularized aortic valve are recorded alongside patients who have undergone mechanical and biological aortic valve replacement, in order to compare the procedures and make a statement about the best possible valve replacement procedure in the aortic position.