Despite continuous improvement in the field, the ideal prosthetic heart valve remains to be developed. Patients with mechanical prosthetic heart valves are at risk of thrombosis and systemic embolism. The incidence rate of these serious complications is significantly reduced by lifelong Oral Anticoagulant Therapy (OAC) vitamin K antagonist (VKA) therapy. Despite its undeniable benefits, VKA the...

OBJECTIVE Surgical treatment of rheumatic valvular disease still constitutes a significant number of cardiac operations in developing countries. Despite improvements in myocardial protection and cardiopulmonary bypass techniques, triple valve operations (aortic, mitral and tricuspid valves) are still challenging because of longer duration of cardiopulmonary bypass and higher degree of myocardia...

BACKGROUND The CarboMedics valve is a relatively new, low-profile, bileaflet, mechanical prosthesis. The results of a prospective follow-up study after valve replacement with this prosthesis in a university hospital are presented. METHODS We implanted 640 CarboMedics prostheses in 583 patients in the aortic (n = 359), mitral (n = 167), or aortic and mitral positions (double valve replacement;...

Mechanical and bioprosthetic valves work relatively well in adults, but have complications in children. Even if the complications could be resolved, neither of these valve replacements can grow with the child, which a tissue engineered heart valve (TEHV) is expected to do. Recent studies in valve structure and composition showed significant agerelated changes. This indicates that there are like...

A best evidence topic in cardiac surgery was written according to a structured protocol. The question addressed was whether a mechanical or bioprosthetic valve is superior for immediate and long-term survival in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) undergoing a valve replacement. Altogether more than 150 papers were found using the reported search; of which, eight represented the best e...

To cite: Noroozian N, Bashir A, Bradlow W, et al. BMJ Case Rep Published online: [please include Day Month Year] doi:10.1136/ bcr-2013-201918 DESCRIPTION A lady in her late 30s was admitted with a 2-week history of shortness of breath and productive cough. She had been treated for presumed lower respiratory tract infection but had not clinically improved. Her medical history includes rheumatic ...

Anticoagulation therapy was generally used in patients receiving mechanical mitral valve replacement. However, due to the increased risk of bleeding of anticoagulation therapy, it is important to control the International Normalized Ratio (INR) in a lower range to decrease the risk of bleeding. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate to which level the INR should be controlled and e...

BACKGROUND We performed the first quadruple valve replacement with mechanical valves, combined with the correction of complex congenital heart disease on November 17, 1999. We report here the 11-year follow-up study. METHODS A 47-year-old man with subacute rheumatic endocarditis, a ventricular septal defect, and an obstruction of the right ventricular outflow tract required replacement of the...

Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is a new method for patients with severe aortic stenosis at high surgical risk, such as previous cardiac surgery. The presence of mechanical mitral prosthesis might complicate TAVI because of possible interference between the both prosthesis. Some reports have already demonstrated the feasibility of TAVI in such patients. We report our experience w...

T he first successful heart valve replacements were carried out in 1960 with the use of mechanical prostheses.1-3 Because of the risk of throm-boembolism that is inherent to all mechanical prosthe-ses and the hazards of continuous anticoagulation, fewer thrombogenic tissue valves were developed.4,5 In the early 1960s, homograft replacement of the aortic valve was reported,6'7 and shortly therea...