I have seen her story before. She and I have the same caged-ball Starr-Edwards valve (I don't know my model no.) except mine is in the Aortic position. My cardio has told me that these old Starr-Edwards valves were built like Sherman Tanks. Mine was implanted Aug. 16. 1967 and it recently turned its 55th anniversary.......still working fine.......unfortunately the rest of my body is beginning to fall apart.
As I increasingly joke with a friend of mine: "what's good about getting old"
Unless Dick has had some valve dysfunction, this would appear wrong (Dick is well past that) and is typical of the shoddy research I currently see.
The only "oops" I've had was a stroke that was due to my mismanagement of warfarin (before the INR system was introduced).
I have thought the same thing. I understand that quite a few of these old "ball in cage valves" are still around. Edwards Lifesciences INC was born out of the little company started by Dr. Alberet STARR (cardiologist) and Lowell EDWARDS (pneumatics engineer) around 1960. Edwards Lifesciences continued production of the ole "ball in cage" design until discontinuing it in 2007 according to an Edwards marketing brochure that I have a copy of......however, it hasn't been used in the USA for many years. I guess it was too good and too inexpensive for the modern "thro away" system where products are built to throw away.....creating a new buyer for a replacement.@dick0236 , I don't expect Edwards Lifesciences to work very hard to find any records of you. Let's face it, you've been a terrible customer. You haven't returned to them for business even once in 55 years. If all of their customers were like you they would soon be out of business
They have those new Resilia valves that i was told last 50 years. No ACT needed.
the fine print on that: *(actual user experience may vary)
