OBJECTIVE Prediction of aortic dissection or rupture is extremely difficult in patients with bicuspid aortic valve. We aimed to identify clinical and echocardiography predictors of histological abnormalities of the aortic wall in patients with bicuspid aortic valve undergoing aortic surgery. METHODS We assessed the histology of the aortic wall and clinical and echocardiography variables in a ...

Two Doppler methods, the pressure half-time method proposed by Hatle and the method based on the equation of continuity, were used to estimate stenotic mitral valve area noninvasively, and the accuracy of these methods was examined in patients with and without associated aortic regurgitation. Mitral valve area determined at catheterization by the Gorlin formula was used as a standard of referen...

Background: Mitral valve-in-valve (ViV) and valve-in-ring (ViR) are alternatives to surgical reoperation in patients with recurrent mitral valve failure after previous repair or replacement. Our aim was perform a large-scale analysis examining midterm outcomes ViV ViR. Methods: Patients undergoing ViR were enrolled the Valve-in-Valve International Data Registry. Cases performed between March 20...

Of seven patients with pulmonary hypertension, two had marked and one had moderate retardation of the echocardiographic anterior mitral valve leaflet closing motion, suggestive of mitral stenosis. In each patient, however, mitral stenosis was excluded by hemodynamic or anatomic criteria. The reason for the abnormal mitral valve motion was considered to be a reduced rate of left ventricular dias...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the driving system actuated by a proportional directional control valve on a hydraulic cylinder. In order to evaluate the dynamic interaction between the proportional valve and the cylinder theoretical analysis, numerical simulations as well as experimental test are performed. Coupling cylinder and proportional valve, it is very important to know the ratio of...

Background—Few published studies address the survival of kidney transplantation patients after valve surgery, and none address relative outcomes related to tissue versus nontissue prosthesis. This study aimed to assess survival of US kidney transplantation patients after cardiac valve replacement and to compare associations of valve selection. Methods and Results—Of 1 698 706 patients in the US...

Echocardiography was performed in 36 patients with transposition of the great arteries (TGA). Twenty patients were studied before a Mustard operation, 14 patients after operation and two patients both before and after operation. Right ventricular end-diastolic dimension (RVED) was larger than normal in each patient and tended to increase postoperatively. In contrast, the left ventricular end-di...

a ruptured sinus of valsalva aneurysm rarely accompanies the aortic and tricuspid valve endocarditis. a 36-year-old woman presented with low-threshold dyspnea on exertion and fever. transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography showed a ruptured noncoronary sinus of valsalva aneurysm with large vegetations on the tricuspid and aortic valves, resulting in moderately severe tricuspid regurgi...

AIMS To investigate the contemporary clinical course of aortic valve disease types. METHODS AND RESULTS We performed a retrospective population-level epidemiological study of hospitalized care in Scotland from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2005 using electronic case identification of hospital admissions and deaths. Time-to-event analyses were performed using Cox Proportional-Hazards models. A...

To design more effective tissue-engineered heart valve replacements, the replacement tissue may need to mimic the biaxial stress-strain behavior of native heart valve tissue. This study characterized the planar biaxial properties of tissue-engineered valve leaflets and native aortic valve leaflets. Fibrin-based valve equivalent (VE) and porcine aortic valve (PAV) leaflets were subjected to incr...