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Valve operations are particularly common in congenital heart defects. In the field of aortic valve surgery, autologous aortic valve replacement (light blue) with the installation of the patient's own pulmonary valve in aortic position and the use of a bioprosthesis or a homograft in pulmonary position, the so-called Ross operation, is a particular specialty of the German Heart Institute Berlin. Even though this corresponds to a two-valve procedure, the reoperation of the patient's own valve in aortic position remains the exception and oral anticoagulation for the patient can be avoided. In pulmonary valve surgery, non-surgical replacement by means of catheter-assisted implantation of a valve-bearing stent (Melody valve or Sapien valve / gray) is an alternative option for minimally invasive heart valve replacement without surgery (see also Fig. 15). In selected patients, this technique can now also be used for minimally invasive valve replacement of the tricuspid valve between the right atrium and the right ventricle. Especially the interventional therapy of the valves between the atria and the ventricles is a highly complicated procedure and can only be performed in a standardized way at very few centers. Not least because of its great experience in the field of minimally invasive catheter-assisted valve replacement, the DHZB has been functioning as an international training and education center for many years.

Despite the interventional valve implantation (dark blue) there is no decrease in the surgical valve replacement (sum of the number of xenograft, homograft and mechanical valve ops). The high level of expertise in the treatment of all types of valve diseases is one of the main arguments for patients who visit our centre specifically for this purpose.