Morphological and mechanical properties of the posterior leaflet chordae tendineae in the mitral valve.

A number of studies have investigated the morphological and mechanical properties of the chordae tendineae of the mitral valve, providing comparisons between basal, marginal, and strut chordae and between chordae at the anterior and posterior leaflets. This study contributes to the literature by comparing the failure load of the chordae tendineae attached to the three posterior leaflet scallops, the anterolateral scallop (P1), middle scallop (P2), and posteromedial scallop (P3) of the mitral valve. In all, 140 chordae isolated from 23 porcine hearts were tested. First, the cross-sectional diameters of all branches in each chorda were measured using a microscope. Next, after positioning the chorda in a tensile testing machine, a preload of 0.2 N was applied, and the chordal length was measured. Cyclic loading between 0 and 0.3 N, 10 times with a speed of 1.5 mm/s, was conducted, after which the machine travelled at 1.5 mm/s until the chorda broke. We found that P2 chordae were thicker than P1 and P3 chordae and longer than P1 chordae. P2 chordae failed at significantly higher loads than P1 and P3 chordae. For all three types of chordae, almost half of the failures occurred at the chordal branch that was closest to the leaflet.