In Vitro Comparison of Aortic Valve Prostheses in a 3D-Printed Aortic Arch Using State-of-the-Art 4D Imaging

Background: Aortic valve replacement is one of the most common procedures in cardiac surgery. Despite the large variety of aortic valve prostheses, it is not thoroughly known, how a valve replacement affects the hemodynamics in the aortic arch. Therefore, we developed a mock circulatory loop (MCL) to compare different types of established surgical aortic valve prostheses (SAV) and their corresponding flow patterns in a three-dimensional (3D)-printed, flexible aortic arch using magnetic resonance imaging and Doppler ultrasound.