Should a patient prefer a heart valve replacement with tissue valve? Mechanical heart valve may be better for some patents. Pig heart valve is better for elderly patients. Sometimes it is necessary to replace a heart valve. Tissue or mechanical valve replacement? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. In elderly patients porcine aortic valve replacement is preferred. Dr. Lawrence H. Cohn, MD. In younger patients aortic valve replacement with pig valve is preferred. younger patients may want to play sports. Leading cardiac surgeon and pioneer in minimally invasive heart valve surgery explains. How to compare choice of tissue or mechanical valve for heart valve replacement operation? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Video interview with leading expert in cardiac surgery. Second opinion confirms that mitral valve disease diagnosis is correct and complete. Second opinion helps to choose the best treatment for aortic and mitral valve disease. Get second opinion on mitral valve prolapse and be confident that your treatment is the best. Today aortic valve replacement options include animal tissue valves and mechanical valves. Pig valve vs. mechanical valves decision depends on willingness and ability of patient to take oral anticoagulants. Patient needs to take blood-thinning medications for the rest of life. Repeat surgical operation in 15 years is also required in heart valve replacement with tissue pig valve. Lifestyle modification after heart valve replacement. It requires careful evaluation of life goals and lifestyle requirements.Dr. Lawrence H. Cohn, MD. Choose tissue valve to continue active sports. You can do skiing, football, soccer, traveling with tissue heart valve. Tissue or mechanical valve replacement. 1234 Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Sometimes a patient has to have surgery to replace heart valve. How to decide between tissue heart valve and mechanical heart valve? Dr. Anton Titov, MD. How elderly patients can make a decision about replacement of heart valve? 1234 (Cardiac Surgeon, Harvard Medical School). Dr. Lawrence H. Cohn, MD. There are only two kinds of replacement heart valves. The mechanical heart valve is made of artificial materials. There is also a tissue heart valve. It is made of cow tissue or pig tissue. Current recommendation is that everyone over 60 or 65 years of age should have a tissue heart valve as replacement heart valve. Everybody younger than 60 or 65 should have a mechanical valve as replacement valve. The problem with mechanical heart valve is that. A patient has to take blood thinning medication every day for the rest of patient's life. Patients also have to do blood tests frequently. A lot of patients do not like to do that. Some patients also have diseases when anti-coagulation with medicines is prohibited. Anticoagulation medications are warfarin or Coumadin. More than 70% of patients in the United States choose an animal tissue heart valve. This decision is independent of the age of the patient. Then patients do not have to take blood-thinning medication. Patients also have to understand that. They will require a repeat operation in 12 to 15 years time. Patients will need to replace animal tissue valve to a new valve. But elderly patients often receive animal tissue valve replacement. Because elderly patients do not tolerate anti-coagulation well. Blood-thinning medications, warfarin or Coumadin, can also be contraindicated. This is because of other diseases in elderly patients. So in the United States the choice of mechanical heart valve or animal tissue heart valve is free choice of the patient. Patient knows the advantages and disadvantages of both replacement heart valves. But a lot of younger patients choose animal tissue replacement heart valve. Because they want to ski or play hockey. Patients cannot play those sports if they take blood-thinning medications. Coumadin has a high risk of bleeding. Patients know that they can have animal tissue valve replacement. Then they will have to have another heart surgery sooner than if they had a mechanical replacement heart valve. Dr. Lawrence H. Cohn, MD. But a lot of decisions of patients depend on their lifestyle. This is how patients choose mechanical heart valve or pig heart valve for replacement. 1234 Dr. Anton Titov, MD. What are risks of repeat heart surgery in 12 to 15 years? If a patient has animal tissue heart valve. Are risks similar to the risks of the first operation? 1234 In our hands the risks of repeat heart valve replacement surgery are similar to the risks of patient's first valve replacement surgery. In some other hands of surgeons the risks of repeat operation could be higher. But the patient should not wait too long before the second animal tissue valve replacement operation. Dr. Lawrence H. Cohn, MD. Sometimes replaced heart valve of the patients becomes calcified and develops stenosis, then patients should prepare to have repeat surgery to replace heart valve second time. Dr. Anton Titov, MD. Tissue or mechanical valve replacement? Patient’s age and lifestyle is determining factor. Mechanical valve has anticoagulation necessity. Pig valve has repeat operation risk.