OBJECTIVE Life expectancy of cryopreserved allografts implanted in infants is different from those implanted in adults. A morphological study of explanted allograft heart valves was performed to determine the mechanism of deterioration and to compare cryopreserved arterial and heart valve allografts from adult patients with those explanted from infants. METHOD Between 1987 and 1996, 209 cryop...

Multiple aorto-cardiac cavity communications is very rare but important complication of prosthetic aortic valve endocarditis. The case below illustrates multiple aorto-cardiac cavity fistula formation following prostethic aortic valve endocarditis presented with slowly progressive symptoms of heart failure. A brief review of surgical reconstruction and the existing literature are presented, inc...

introduction brucella endocarditis, although an uncommon complication of brucellosis, is the main cause of the mortality related to this disease. the best therapy is a combination of antibiotic administration with valve replacement. after treatment of the first episode of endocarditis, new infection may be occurred as a relapse or reinfection. case presentation in this report, we described a pa...

INTRODUCTION In spite of significant recent advances in imaging modalities for studying cardiac hemodynamics, present day in vivo measurement techniques can only resolve large scale blood flow features. Understanding flow patterns in the heart at physiological conditions and scales sufficiently fine for establishing quantitatively links between disease and patientspecific hemodynamics continues...

Implantation of a prosthetic heart valve is generally contra-indicated in the presence of infection. A 68-year-old man with chronic osteomyelitis underwent successful double valve replacement, combined with coronary artery bypass, after his draining osteomyelitic fistula was controlled with antibiotics. During the 39 months since surgery, he has shown no sign of paravalvular leakage or infectio...

abstract background: few attempts were made for alleviating the physical/psychological problems among the cardiac valve–replaced patients and no comprehensive study was done based on the experiences of such patients. this study was undertaken to describe the stressful experiences of the heart valve-replaced patients. materials and methods: in this qualitative study performed during 2012-2013 wi...

The introduction of valve replacement surgery in the early 1960s has dramatically improved the outcome of patients with valvular heart disease. Approximately 90 000 valve substitutes are now implanted in the United States and 280 000 worldwide each year; approximately half are mechanical valves and half are bioprosthetic valves. Despite the marked improvements in prosthetic valve design and sur...

a common complication of prosthetic heart valves is thrombosis. although the incidence of prosthetic valve thrombosis (pvt) in the tricuspid position is high, there are not enough data on the management of it, in contrast to left-sided pvt. here, we describe three cases of tricuspid pvt with three different management approaches: thrombolytic therapy; close observation with oral anticoagulants;...

Obstructive thrombosed prosthetic heart valve (OTPHV) is a serious complication of heart valve replacement. There are no generally accepted criteria for management of these patients. Therefore, in September 2012, a literature survey of studies published after 1995 was performed to analyze the data regarding clinical outcomes of patients with OTPHV treated with thrombolytic agents and with surge...