supravalvar mitral ring is a rare congenital heart defect of surgical importance. the condition is characterized by an abnormal ridge of the connective tissue on the atrial side of the mitral valve. it often substantially obstructs the mitral valve inflow. we herein introduce a case of a supravalvar mitral ring in a 17-year-old male, who was admitted to our hospital with cardiac syncope. he had...

A 27-year-old Hispanic female, in second trimester of her pregnancy, presented to our emergency department (ER) with gradually worsening shortness of breath. The physical exam was significant for a loud S1, mid-diastolic murmur of mitral stenosis and basilar crackles. A chest X-ray was performed that showed bilateral pulmonary edema and straightening of the left heart border (Figure 1). The ech...

M-mode echocardiography was performed in 54 patients 1 month to 3 years after mitral valvotomy for dominant mitral stenosis. The mitral valve closure index (MVCI), an index previously shown to correlate well with the calculated mitral valve area, was used to diagnose residual mitral stenosis. Using the equation MVCI = 33 MVC--12, 12 patients (22%) were deemed to have mild, 4 (7%) moderate, and ...

Extensive mitral annulus calcifications are considered a contraindication for valve surgery. We describe the case of a 76-year-old female with severe mitral and aortic stenosis associated with extensive calcifications of the heart. The patient underwent an open mitroaortic valve replacement using transcatheter aortic valve implantation with an Edwards SAPIEN XT valve (Edwards Lifesciences Corp....

Introduction Spontaneous echo contrast (SEC) is a smokelike echo phenomenon with a swirling pattern of blood flow that can be observed in transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) or transthoracic echocardiography (TTE), most often within the left atrium or left ventricle. SEC is first described by Feigenbaum in 1975, which has been observed under conditions of low blood flow velocity, such as rhe...

Heart valve replacement is a common cardiac surgical procedure used to treat native valvular diseases such as aortic and mitral stenosis and regurgitation. These procedures reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with diseased native valves and yet come at the expense of prosthetic valve complications. Structural valve degeneration is one such complication. We present a case of a critical...

Balloon mitral valvuloplasty has, over the last 15 years, become an established interventional procedure. For patients with pliable uncalcified mitral stenosis, dilatation with the Inoue balloon is the intervention of choice, oVering results comparable to surgical commissurotomy. In the Western world, however, with the gradual extinction of rheumatic fever, patients with mitral stenosis are now...

Mitral stenosis is associated with increased pulmonary artery pressure and resistance. Adrenomedullin, discovered in human pheochromocytoma tissue in 1993, has shown to dilate the pulmonary vessels and so may participate in the control of pulmonary circulation. In this study, we assessed the plasma concentration of adrenomedullin in patients complaining of rheumatic mitral stenosis, with and wi...

This report describes 3 cases of pulmonary stenosis in the recipient twin in twin-twin transfusion syndrome. Fetal echocardiography showed cardiomegaly, tricuspid valve regurgitation, and increased reverse flow in the inferior vena cava, as signs of congestive heart failure in all 3 cases. We diagnosed 2 cases of pulmonary stenosis by fetal echocardiography prenatally and confirmed our findings...

HE DEFORMITY called "parachute mitral valve" represents a form of congenital mitral stenosis in which the chordae tendineae converge to insert into one papil-lary muscle.' This type of malformation is rare and has been described previously only in association with other anomalies; with corrected transposition of the great vessels;2 as a component of a developmental complex' with other obstructi...