Effect of dynamic glutaraldehyde fixation on the viscoelastic properties of bovine pericardial tissue

We have previously proposed dynamic fixation as an alternative method to fix a porcine aortic heart valve xenograft with better tissue fixation and better preservation of its natural biomechanical properties. Bovine pericardium was fixed under dynamic conditions, low pressures (< 4 mmHg) and low vibration rate (1.2 Hz) in a 0.5% glutaraldehyde phosphate buffer (pH 7.4, 0.2 M). After fixation, tensile testing (i.e. relaxation and stress-strain curves) was performed at low and high extension rates (3 and 30 mm s−1) and tissue denaturation temperatures were determined by the hydrothermal isometric tension method. Conventional fresh and statically fixed pericardium were used as controls. In this instance, we found no significant biomechanical differences between the dynamically and statically fixed pericardial tissue (e.g. moduli and stress relaxation). However, differences in tissue extensibility were delineated, since the extensibility of the dynamically fixed tissue was closer to that of the fresh tissue compared to that of the statically fixed tissue. The final relaxation rate of the dynamically fixed tissue (− 3.5 ± 1.0% of stress remaining per log(second)) was similar to that of the statically fixed tissue (− 3.2 ± 0.6% log(s−1)) and significantly lower than the fresh tissue (− 9.5 ± 1.2% log(s−1)). The denaturation temperatures of the dynamically fixed pericardial tissue (mean ± SD) (86.0 ± 1.2°C) and the statically fixed (85.2 ± 1.6°C) were similar but significantly higher than that of the untreated (fresh) valves (69.3 ± 0.4°C). The results suggest a similar degree of internal cross-linking for both statically and dynamically fixed pericardium. Although fundamental structural differences exist between both porcine and bovine xenograft tissue, how these differences contribute to biomechanical differences in the effects of dynamic versus static fixation remain to be explained.