Contents:

Imaging of the aortic root.- Perioperative imaging for assessing aortic and mitral valve diseases and surgical procedures.- Innovations in aortic valve surgery.- The aortic root.- Percutaneous transluminal aortic valve replacement: The CoreValve prosthesis.- Transapical aortic valve implantation - A truly minimally invasive option for high-risk patients.- From minimally invasive to percutaneous aortic valve replacement.- Sutureless equine aortic valve replacement.- The Ross operation: Aortic valve and root replacement with pulmonary autograft.- Pulmonary autograft or aortic allograft for surgical treatment of active infective aortic valve endocarditis: a review of the literature.- The Ross operation: two decades of clinical experience.- Aortic valve repair and valve sparing root procedures.- The bicuspid aortic valve.- From dynamic anatomy to conservative aortic valve surgery: the tale of the ring.- Yacoub/David techniques for aortic root operation: success and failures.- Aortic annuloplasty.- Correction of aortic valve incompetence combined with ascending aortic aneurysm by relocation of the aortic valve plane through a short-length aortic graft replacement.- Using BioGlue to achieve hemostasis in aortic root surgery.- Endocarditis.- Challenges in the surgical management of infective endocarditis.- Clinical results of the Shelhigh (R) stentless bioprosthesis in patients with active infective endocarditis:.- Double valve endocarditis and evolving paraannular abscess formation.- Aortic root abscess: reconstruction of the left ventricular outflow tract and allograft aortic valve and root replacement.- Implantation techniques of freehand subcoronary aortic valve and root replacement with a cryopreserved allograft for aortic root abscess.- Surgery for atrial fibrillation.- Cryoablation for the treatment of atrial fibrillation in patients undergoing minimally invasive mitral valve surgery.- Minimally invasive endoscopic ablation on the beating heart in patients with lone atrial fibrillation.- Hemodynamic evaluation of the bioprosthetic aortic valves.- Evaluation of bioprosthetic valve performance as a function of geometric orifice area and space efficiency- A reliable alternative to effective orifice area.- Long-term results of biological valves.- Stented and stentless aortic bioprostheses: competitive or complimentary?.- Edwards Prima Plus Stentless Bioprosthesis: Long-term clinical and hemodynamic results.- The Cryo-Life O'Brien stentless valve: 1991-2008.- Medtronic stentless Freestyle (R) porcine aortic valve replacement.- The ATS 3f Aortic Bioprosthesis.- The Vascutek Elan stentless porcine prosthesis - The Glasgow experience.- Sorin pericardial valves.- The changing role of pericardial tissue in biological valve surgery: 22 years' experience with the Sorin Mitroflow stented pericardial valve.- 20 years' durability of Carpentier-Edwards Perimount stented pericardial aortic valve.- Twenty-year experience with the St. Jude Medical Biocor bioprosthesis in the aortic position.- 20-Year durability of bioprostheses in the aortic position.- Clinical results including hemodynamic performance of the Medtronic Mosaic porcine bioprosthesis up to ten years.- Aortic root replacement with the BioValsalva prosthesis.- Valve replacement in renal dialysis patients: bioprostheses versus mechanical prostheses.- Replacement of bioprostheses after structural valve deterioration.- Predictors of patient's outcome.- Predicted outcomes after aortic valve replacement in octogenarians with aortic stenosis.- Predicted patient outcome after bioprosthetic AVR and the Ross operation.- Anticoagulation.- Anticoagulation and self-management of INR: mid-term results.- Tissue engineering.- Biomatrix-polymer hybrid material for heart valve tissue engineering.- Standards for the in vitro fabrication of heart valves using human umbilical cord cells.- Tissue engineering with a decellularized valve matrix.- Regularatory issues on tissue valves.- Human tissues for cardiovascular surgery: regulatory requirements.- Concluding remarks.- Concluding remarks.- Atlas of biological valves.- Atlas of biological valves.