Fifty eight patients (aged 8-59 years, mean 27) treated for prosthetic valve endocarditis from January 1966 to January 1985 were studied retrospectively by review of case notes. There were 12 cases of early and 46 cases of late prosthetic valve endocarditis. These developed in 28 patients with an isolated aortic valve, in 26 with an isolated mitral valve, and in four with both aortic and mitral...

The classic case of aortic stenosis is a healthy middle-aged patient with/without symptoms, but in practical life, patients with severe calcific aortic valve come with several and severe comorbidities such as advanced age, coronary artery disease, atherosclerotic aorta, significant left ventricular dysfunction. Aortic valve replacement (AVR) is the only options in these patients, and it require...

In the everyday routine practice of a medical oncologist, it is not so infrequent that a patient with prosthetic heart valve who is on warfarine therapy has to receive chemotherapy, . This is a problematic situation for a medical oncologist since, drug interactions of warfarine with various chemotherapeutics are unpredictable, the result may either be thrombosis or bleeding. Furthermore, chemot...

Prosthetic heart valves are a blessing for people with defective heart valves. One type of mechanical heart valve that was manufactured between 1979 and 1985 has been implanted in approximately 86,000 people. Between 500 and 600 of these valves are known to have failed. The failure occurs when a thin wire strut breaks free, see Figure l. The strut has two legs that are attached to the main body...

OBJECTIVES We sought to determine the clinical and echocardiographic parameters that differentiate thrombus from pannus formation as the etiology of obstructed mechanical prosthetic valves. BACKGROUND Distinction of thrombus from pannus on obstructed prosthetic valves is essential because thrombolytic therapy has emerged as an alternative to reoperation. METHODS We analyzed clinical, transt...