Sinus of Valsalva aneurysm is a rare anomaly, most often caused by a congenital absence of muscular and elastic tissue in the aortic wall of the sinus of Valsalva. It was first described in 1938. The incidence is higher in eastern than western populations. Various surgical repair techniques have been reported with good results. In this case, a 61 years old man, with history of aortic valve repl...

Objectives: There has been frequent report on transcranially detected microembolic signals (HITS) following cardiac surgery using extracorporeal bypass support. The clinical relevance of HITS, however, has yet to be clarified. The incidence of thromboembolic events is increased following mechanical heart valve replacement. The purpose of this study was to quantify postoperative HITS after impla...

For treatment of critical heart valve diseases, prosthetic valves perform fairly well in most adults; however, for pediatric patients, there is the added requirement that the replacement valve grows with the child, thus extremely limiting current treatment options. Tissue engineered heart valves (TEHV), such as those derived from autologous bone marrow stem cells (BMSCs), have the potential to ...

Use of an inspiratory impedance valve has recently been shown to increase the efficacy of standard and active compression-decompression cardiopulmonary resuscitation. We evaluated the effects of a prototypic impedance valve on the relationship between the active decompression and intra-thoracic pressure using a mechanical model lung system. Intermittent impedance to inspiratory flow of respirat...

background: pregnant patients with mechanical heart valves require anticoagulation. the risk of bleeding and embryopathy associated with oral anticoagulants must be weighed against the risk of valve thrombosis. methods: in this prospective study, undertaken between 1999 and 2009, 53 pregnancies (47 women with mechanical mitral valves; 29.8 ± 4.8 years old) were studied. patients were divided in...

BACKGROUND International normalized ratio (INR) self-testing can improve the management of anticoagulation therapy with warfarin for the patients following mechanical heart valve replacement. Several reviews and studies have demonstrated self-management as an option to improve patient's outcome considerably after mechanical heart valve replacement. We sought to analyze the security, economy and...

In patients with prosthetic heart valves non-cardiac surgery may require temporary discontinuation of oral anticoagulation. Although the risk of valve related thromboembolic complications may generally be only slightly increased during the short perioperative period, in the presence of certain risk factors, replacement of oral anticoagulation with heparin is recommended. In the presented patien...

A 73-year old woman who had previous mechanical mitral valve replacement (MVR) presented with worsening symptoms of dyspnea. Echocardiographic evaluation revealed severe aortic stenosis with calcified trileaflet aortic valve (aortic valve area was 0.9 cm2, mean gradient was 42 mm Hg with 45% ejection fraction). Society of Thoracic Surgeons score of the patient was 8.9%, mean logistic European s...

Risk factors for the development of prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE) were analyzed in 2642 patients undergoing initial valve replacement at the Massachusetts General Hospital from 1975 to 1982. Follow-up was available for 2608 patients (98.7%); the mean length of follow-up was 39.8 months. PVE developed in 116 patients (4.4%). The actuarial risk of PVE was 3.1% at 12 months and 5.7% at 60 mo...

Recent studies report a reproducible reduction of myocardial ischemic and cardiopulmonary bypass times along with excellent hemodynamics and low rates of paravalvular leakage for rapid-deployment valves. A 68-year-old female patient with aortic stenosis and a mechanical mitral valve which was implanted in 2006 received rapid-deployment aortic valve replacement. The procedure could be performed ...