In New Zealand, 10.4 million beef and dairy cattle have hearts and the heart’s pericardium is becoming quite high in demand thanks to the biomedical industry which is using the pericardium for surgical patches or replacement heart valves. The material is used as a scaffolding material to repair holes in the heart and reconstruct damaged tubes, as well as stent-based surgical techniques.
“We do around 650 open hearts [surgeries], probably 300 cases will have cattle products in there,” Waikato-based surgeon Adam El-Gamel told New Zealand Farmer. “Nature is amazing. It’s very powerful and very strong.” The cattle-made valves are quite expensive due to the intensive processes involved in converting it from its raw form into a biomedical material.