Heart disease, including valve pathologies, is the leading cause of death worldwide. Despite the progress made thanks to improving transplantation techniques, a perfect valve substitute has not yet been developed: once a diseased valve is replaced with current technologies, the newly implanted valve still needs to be changed some time in the future. This situation is particularly dramatic in th...

there is a paucity of literature regarding iatrogenic aortic valve perforation after cardiac operation is performed in the vicinity of the aortic valve. this report describes the clinical, echocardiographic, and angiocardiographic recognition of iatrogenic aortic valve perforation in a patient who had previously under gone membranous ventricular septal defect and pulmonary stenosis. five days a...

Gaasch WH, Lytle BW, Nishimura RA, O’Gara PT, O’Rourke RA, Otto CM, Shah PM, Shanewise JS. ACC/AHA 2006 guidelines for the management of patients with valvular heart disease. Circulation 2006;114:84–231. 5. Bodnar E. The Medtronic Parallel (TM) valve and the lessons learned. J Heart Valve Dis 1996;5:572–573. 6. Van Nooten GJ, Van Belleghem Y, Caes F, François K, Van Overbeke H, Bové T, Taeymans...

OBJECTIVE A challenging issue is to create a heart valve with growth and remodeling potential, which would be of great interest for congenital heart valve surgery. This study was performed to evaluate the growth and remodeling potentials of a decellularized heart valve. METHODS In 4 juvenile sheep (age 12 +/- 1 weeks) with a weight of 24.3 +/- 4.4 kg, a 17-mm diameter decellularized porcine v...

Between 1998 and 2004 approximately 400,000 people died in Germany from cardiovascular disease, with heart valve disease playing a significant role. Heart valve disease can lead to stenoses or insufficiency. In 2006, heart valve operations nationwide increased to 20,000. The implantation of heart valves demands great skill and experience of the heart surgeon. To date, location of implantation w...

Mitral regurgitation (MR) is a frequent complication of end-stage heart failure. Historically, these patients were either managed medically or with mitral valve replacement, both associated with poor outcomes. Mitral valve repair via an 'undersized' annuloplasty repair is safe and effectively corrects MR in heart-failure patients. All of the observed changes contribute to reverse remodeling and...

Pulmonary valve movement and the related acoustic phenomena were investigated using high speed strip-chart echoand phonocardiographic recording. The opening of the pulmonary valve had no definite relationship to the acoustic phenomena, whereas the pulmonary ejection sound was closely related in time to the early systolic maximal opening of the valve. The concomitant pulmonary ejection systolic ...

Ann Cardiothorac Surg 2013;2(6):857 www.annalscts.com Background The mitral valve controls the direction and flow of blood through the left chambers of the heart. If the valve becomes too hard (calcified) and too narrow (stenosis), flow will be reduced; if the valve becomes too loose, flow might travel backwards (regurgitation). Abnormal blood flow will force the heart to work harder, eventuall...

Correspondence to Professor P Lancellotti; [email protected] The growing prevalence of valvular heart disease represents a major challenge in terms of short-term and long-term management and surveillance. 2 Despite welldefined guidelines, appropriate detection and follow-up strategies are still poorly applied in valvular heart disease. 4 In many countries, valvular heart diseases are m...