One was a minimally-invasive surgery that removes old pace maker cables attached to the heart. The alternative would have been to cut up the sternum for a regular open heart surgery. Which is both more taxing on the circulatory system, and takes about half a year to fully heal again.
The other was a "tissue engineered" heart valve. They take a human donor valve, and over the course of a few weeks remove the human cells in some kind of soap bath, only the collagen matrix remains. This reduces rejection to basically zero, and allows the patient to live without immune suppressants for the rest of their lives.
Alternatives would be a regular human valve (+ immune suppressants indefinitely), animal valves (same problem) or artificial valve (typically don't last for longer than 10 years, and always has increased risk of persistent settlement with bacteria, so need to take antibiotics for every minor thing).
(sorry, medical English is really hard for me, hope this makes sense; if not, feel free to ask).
The other was a "tissue engineered" heart valve. They take a human donor valve, and over the course of a few weeks remove the human cells in some kind of soap bath, only the collagen matrix remains. This reduces rejection to basically zero, and allows the patient to live without immune suppressants for the rest of their lives.
Alternatives would be a regular human valve (+ immune suppressants indefinitely), animal valves (same problem) or artificial valve (typically don't last for longer than 10 years, and always has increased risk of persistent settlement with bacteria, so need to take antibiotics for every minor thing).
(sorry, medical English is really hard for me, hope this makes sense; if not, feel free to ask).