Tlhirty-seven patients with non-rheumatic subvalvar mitral regurgitation are reported, representing 16% of all patients with mitral regurgitation submitted to open operation over a five-and-a-halfyear period. In 22 older patients with 'idiopathic' chordal lesions, the commonest finding was rupture of chordae to the posterior leaflet. The aortic leaflet chordae were most frequently involved foll...

The patient was a 19 year-old woman with the diagnosis of resistant hypertension, although she was under treatment of three classes of anti-hypertensive drugs (beta blocker, angiotensin receptor blocker, diuretic) for more than one year. In physical examination there was only a significant difference between the systolic blood pressure of upper and lower extremities (200 vs. 120 mmHg), without ...

Urinary iron excretion and other aspects of iron metabolism were studied in patients with valvular heart disease before and after valve replacement with heterografts or Starr-Edwards prostheses. Eighty-one per cent of preoperative patients had increased daily urinary iron excretion (0.14-2.2 mg./24 hours) and 61 per cent had a reduced 51Cr survival time. Serum iron levels were low in two patien...

The first 16 patients to have mitral valve replacement with the Starr-Edwards prosthesis at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, were reviewed from one to three years after operation. These patients had presented with serious mitral valve disease and there was a high incidence of severe dyspnoea and persistent congestive failure before operation. There were four operative deaths, and two survivo...

The long term performance characteristics of the 2400 and 1260 series of StarrEdwards aortic prostheses were investigated by a follow up study of clinical outcome of 327 patients discharged from hospital with isolated aortic valve replacement. Follow up lasted for up to 10 years and was based on 1616 patient-years. The 2400 series cloth covered tracked valve was implanted in 182 patients from 1...

Our experience with thromboembolism in 283 patients surviving at least 1 week following insertion of Starr-Edwards valves is reported here. Of these patients, 155 underwent aortic valve replacement, 21 had aortic valve replacement with mitral commissurotomy, 80 had mitral replacement, and 27 had both aortic and mitral valve replacement. Complete follow-up data were obtained on all patients, fro...

SINCE the introduction of artificial heart valves, investigators have been continuously modifying them, endeavoring to eliminate complications associated with their use. -3 The Starr-Edwards ball-valve prosthesis was the first to be widely accepted; however, problems due to its weight, cage size, and resistance to blood flow have stimulated the search for a better prosthetic device. In spite of...