AIM To define therapeutic ways to manage obstetrics at an optimal level for a patient carrying a mechanical prosthetic heart valve. METHOD From a review of literature and documented cases, we propose an obstetrical and cardiological management scheme for pregnant patients carrying a mechanical prosthetic heart valve. We deal successively with the preventive (anticoagulation) and curative trea...

https://e-kcj.org A 40-year-old male was admitted to the cardiac care unit (CCU) due to severe pneumonia associated with unstable hemodynamics. Meanwhile, a grade 3–4 systolic murmur was heard at the left lower sternal border. Tracing his history back, he had undergone mitral valve replacement with a Björk-Shiley convexoconcave prosthetic valve (single tilting disc mechanical valve) 25 years be...

Since the first report of the application of Doppler echocardiography in the evaluation of prosthetic heart valves 10 years ago, dozens of studies have reaffirmed the usefulness of this technique in the noninvasive assessment of transvalvular hemodynamics. Most of these studies have established "normal values" for Doppler-determined pressure gradients and valve areas of prosthetic mitral and ao...

This report records for the first time the occurrence of isolated subacute bacterial endocarditis involving the tricuspid valve in a patient whose condition evolved into classic tetralogy of Fallot, and who required prosthetic replacement of the valve in addition to surgical therapy for the congenital lesions. Postoperative complete heart block was corrected with implantation of a P-wave synchr...

To determine the incidence and extent of calcification of implanted glutaraldehyde-treated porcine prosthetic heart valves, 82 valves explanted from 73 patients were examined for calcium by radiography and light microscopy. At the time of valve implantation, the patients were 21⁄4/4-76 years old. They included 15 children (patients younger than 15 years of age, mean age at time of valve implant...

Prosthesis valve dehiscence is one of the most serious complications prosthetic valves. Despite improvements in medical and surgical treatments, prosthesis has high mortality. Due to fatality rates, early diagnosis treatment these patients required. In this case report, we presented a patient with severe mitral deficiency acute heart failure following mechanical secondary culture-negative endoc...

We report the successful management of a patient who suffered embolisation of a Bjork-Shiley mitral prosthetic valve disc after fracture of the minor strut. Emergency surgical treatment was responsible for her survival. The disc was recovered through the abdominal aorta at a subsequent operation, performed once the condition of the patient had stabilised. This experience confirms previous repor...

OBJECTIVES Prosthetic heart valve obstruction (PHVO) is a potentially fatal complication of heart valve replacement with mechanical substitute mainly due to thrombosis. The purpose of this report is to present a single-center experience of 136 consecutive patients operated on between 1978 and 2001. METHODS The diagnosis of PHVO was mainly assessed by fluoroscopy and/or echocardiography. Throm...

Prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE) is a rare but serious complication of cardiac valve replacement surgery and is associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality. Despite significant advances in our understanding of the pathogenesis and management of this disease process, the rates of undesirable outcomes, including mortality directly attributable to infection, remain unacceptably high. ...

The escape of the prosthetic heart valve disc is one of the causes of prosthetic dysfunction that requires emergency surgery. The removal of the embolized disc should be carried out because of the risk of a progressive extrusion on the aortic wall. Several imaging techniques can be used for the detection of the missing disc localization. In this report we describe a 32-year-old man who underwen...