Since 1989, the European Heart Bank (EHB) has cooperated with a large network of Western European procurement and implantation centers to prepare and distribute antibiotic-treated and cryopreserved heart valves from multiorgan donors or the recipients of cardiac transplantation. This report on a 10-year period of banking and distribution activity highlights the following points: 1. The rejection rate of homografts because of viral hazard and bacterial contamination is acceptable. 2. The atherosclerotic lesions of the aortic valves in mature donors results in a relative shortage of good quality aortic homografts; however, this shortage has been gradually compensated by the increasing request for pulmonary homografts due in great part to the recent popularity of the Ross operation. 3. The storage and shipping of cryopreserved homografts in liquid nitrogen vapor (~-150° C) has proved to be homograft-sparing, while the quality and safety of the cryopreservation and thawing procedures reduced thawing complications to a minimum.