Three-Dimensional Printing of Patient-Specific Heart Valves: Separating Facts From Fiction and Myth From Reality

The development of prosthetic heart valves by Dr. Charles Hufnagel in 1952 was a major clinical innovation; however, it was not an ideal solution. Mechanical prosthetic heart valves are rigid, immunogenic, require anticoagulation, do not grow with the patient, and have a finite life.¹ An ideal prosthetic valve should overcome all these limitations. Considering the prevalence of valvular heart disorders, there is considerable interest in the creation of patient-specific heart valves. Following the introduction of three-dimensional (3D) printing in 1986 by Chuck Hill, rapid advances in multimodality 3D imaging and modeling have led to a generation of tangible replicas of patient-specific anatomy. The science of organogenesis has gained importance for a multitude of valid reasons: as an alternate source of organs, for realistic drug testing, as an alternative to animal testing, and for transplants that grow with the patient. What scientists imagined to be seemingly impossible in the past now seems just a step away from becoming a reality. However, due to the disruptive nature of this technology, often there are commercially-motivated claims of originality and overstatement of the scope and applicability of 3D printing. It often is difficult to separate fact from fiction and myth from reality. In this manuscript, the authors have reviewed the historic perspective, status of the basic techniques of organogenesis with specific reference to heart valves, and their potential.