The treatment of recurrent prosthetic valve endocarditis is extremely difficult. Heart transplantation (HT) may save the patient's life. Recurrent endocarditis, however, can occur after HT. This report described a patient who had under gone four conventional valve surgeries and three HTs successfully. In May 2000, a 14-year-old boy suffered from endocarditis with severe aortic valve regurgitati...

Bicuspid aortic valve disease is the most common congenital cardiac anomaly. The prevalence in the general population is between 0.46% and 1.37%. There is significantly high cardiac morbidity associated with bicuspid aortic valve disease, predominantly due to progressive valve dysfunction (stenosis or regurgitation) that requires surgical intervention for symptom relief or prevention of left ve...

Dear Editor, A 39-year-old man with stable aortic regurgitation secondary to congenital bicuspid aortic valve was diagnosed with Streptococcus mitis infective endocarditis with low minimum inhibitory concentration to penicillin. Initial transoesophageal echocardiography demonstrated aortic root oedema with vegetations seen on the aortic valve. Despite improving clinical parameters on intravenou...

A33-year-old man presented to the hospital with shortness of breath and chest pain. He was subsequently diagnosed with Streptococcus mitis endocarditis involving the aortic valve. The initial echocardiogram revealed moderate aortic valve regurgitation and a normal mitral valve without regurgitation. The patient was treated with afterload reduction and antibiotics. Blood cultures were negative w...

quadricuspid aortic valve (qav) is an uncommon congenital anomaly which was an incidental finding during surgery or autopsy in the past. we present the case of a 44-year-old woman with moderately severe aortic regurgitation due to unequal cusp size qav diagnosed via transesophageal echocardiography. due to echocardiographic imaging improvement, the diagnosis of qav is now easier and earlier tha...

A 67-year-old man with grade 3 aortic valve regurgitation was found to have a quadricuspid aortic valve. The aortic valve consisted of 1 large, 2 intermediate and 1 small sized cusp. An accessory cusp located between the right and noncoronary cusps, and shaped like a hammock which sling by the fibrous strings originating from the both commissures to the aortic wall. Aortic valve replacement was...

A standard approach in the surgical treatment of severe aortic regurgitation and/or aortic root dilatation is Bentall procedure, it means replacement of the aortic valve and ascending aorta with a composite graft including mechanical or biological valve. The original technique described by Bentall and De Bono in 1968 (5). This is a „safe“ method with low mortality, but patients have to accept t...

OBJECTIVE Midterm clinical outcome was evaluated after aortic root replacement with Freestyle® stentless aortic root bioprostheses. METHODS Between April 1996 and December 2007, 301 patients underwent aortic valve replacement with stentless Medtronic Freestyle® bioprostheses in full-root technique at a single center. Concomitant coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) was required in 96 patien...

Objective: This study reports the outcomes of the cryopreserved mitral homograft in 119 patients prospectively followed with clinical, echocardiographic and structural valve deterioration assessments. Methods: 119 patients undergoing mitral and aortic homograft implantation. Patient’s causes of mitral disease were: rheumatic disease (n = 75), endocarditis (n = 37) and others (n = 7). There were...

Technetium-99m stannous pyrophosphate (99mTc-PYP) cardiac scintigraphy was performed in 15 rabbits with experimental Streptococcus sanguis aortic valve infective endocarditis. The animals were imaged five to seven days after the administration of bacteria, and in each case abnormal accumulation of the tracer was visualized in the region of the aortic valve. Three types of cardiac scintigraphic ...