Since 1952 when Dr Hufnagel, an American cardiac surgeon at Georgetown University first used a caged ball valve in the descending thoracic aorta to treat aortic valve insufficiency [1], there have been significant advancements in mechanical valve prostheses to treat valvular disease with increasingly improving results. However, even some of the very old valves have served patients safely and effectively for many years. The long-lasting performance of such a valve is reported today in the Oxford Medical Case Reports by Jiménez Rodriguez et al. [2], presenting a female patient who had a Braunwald-Cutter valve implanted 43 years ago in 1974.
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