Cardiovascular Homograft Transplants
Cardiovascular homograft transplant replace faulty heart valves, blood vessels or even windpipe. A homograft transplant offers the hope of effective treatment to people who may be living with defective or damaged hearts or airways.
How our programme can help you
If your heart valve is worn out, you suffer from a heart valve disease or your child was born with a heart valve defect, a valve replacement may be required. A defective heart valve can be replaced with a donated human valve or an artificial valve. Data shows that human replacement heart valves are more suitable for patients who have infective heart disease and patients who cannot take blood-thinning medications, which are necessary to prevent blood clots in patients with artificial valves.
If your doctors feel that a transplant is the right choice for you, they will work with the National Cardiovascular Homograft Bank, a dedicated tissue bank that recovers, stores and matches donated heart valve, blood vessels and windpipe.
If, however, you require a complete heart or lung transplant, go to our page on
heart and lung transplants.
Achievements
The National Cardiovascular Homograft Bank was established by National Heart Centre Singapore in 2008 to create a local source of human heart, valve, blood vessel and windpipe tissues for transplants. The bank is the only source in Singapore for cardiovascular homograft tissues.
To date, a total of 19 patients here have benefited from tissues donated to the National Cardiovascular Homograft Bank. The oldest recipient is a 65-year-old woman and the youngest a 3-year-old boy. Almost 50% of recipients are children.
Thanks to improvements in medical care, including the gift of cardiovascular homograft tissues, more patients are able to survive conditions such as acquired heart disease and the number of children born with heart valve diseases who survive into adulthood is also increasing.
For more information on cardiovascular homograft transplants
Contact
National Cardiovascular Homograft Bank
C/o
National Heart Centre Singapore