New technology: The sutureless valve prostheses

The sutureless concept of aortic valve implantation was developed in the early 1960s; however, this approach fell out of favour due to frequent valve-related thromboembolic complications and severe paravalvular leakage. More recently, with the advent of bovine pericardial valve prostheses, new sutureless and rapid deployment aortic valve prostheses have been reintroduced based on modern experience with transcatheter aortic valve implantation. There are two types of sutureless and rapid deployment aortic prostheses currently available on the market: the Perceval™ (LivaNova, Saluggia, Italy) and the Intuity Elite™ (Edwards Lifesciences, Irvine, Calif., USA) valves. By avoiding the placement and tying of sutures, sutureless aortic valve replacement (SU-AVR) has shown to minimize operative times and facilitate minimally invasive approaches. Moreover, current evidence suggests that sutureless and rapid deployment valves provide excellent haemodynamic results. Nevertheless, there is still a paucity of robust evidence on long-term SU-AVR outcomes; thus, to adequately assess the encouraging haemodynamic profile and the durability of these prostheses, further clinical trials are warranted.