Despite significant advancements in the field of cardiovascular imaging, transoesophageal echocardiography remains the key imaging modality in the management of valvular pathologies. This paper provides echocardiographers with an overview of the modern role of TOE in the diagnosis and management of valvular disease. We describe how the introduction of 3D techniques has changed detection and gra...

C atheter assessment of Starr-Edwards prosthetic aortic valve stenosis requires simultaneous recording of left ventricular (LV) and aortic pressures. Passage of conventional Dacron catheters across mechanical valves can damage the mechanism and induce valvar incompetence. The alternative Bockenbrough procedure requires atrial septal puncture with potential lethal complications. The availability...

I n the article by Lawley et al, “Heart Valve Prostheses in Pregnancy: Outcomes for Women and Their Infants,” which published online June 26, 2014, and appeared in the June 2014 issue of the journal (J Am Heart Assoc. 2014;3:e000953 doi: 10.1161/JAHA.114.000953), a correction is needed. In the abstract, the first sentence read, “As the prognosis of women with prosthetic heart valves improves, a...

For prosthetic heart valves the risk of infection is much higher than for native heart valves. During the course of infective endocarditis 20-40% of all patients suffer from cerebrovascular complications such as ischaemic stroke or intracerebral haemorrhage. We present the case of a 57-year-old woman who had undergone surgery to mechanically replace an aortic heart valve 11 months ago and suffe...

• The group of patients where this issue is of prime importance is when considering those groups of patients with underlying Atrial Fibrillation (AF) and prosthetic heart valves. The risk of embolisation is increased with mitral valve prostheses, caged ball devices and multiple prosthetic valves. • It is equally of paramount importance to calculate the thromboembolic risk by applying the CHADS2...

BACKGROUND 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) has been recently acknowledged as a diagnostic tool for prosthetic valve endocarditis, but its specificity is limited by uptake on noninfected valves. The objective of this study was to outline the main features of FDG uptake on PET/CT in patients with noninfected prosthetic heart valve (PHV). ME...

Patients who have undergone valve replacement surgery remain at risk of serious and potentially life threatening complications long after their initial surgery. The risk of death from valve related complications has been estimated at approximately 1% per annum. As a consequence lifelong routine follow up of patients with prosthetic heart valves in hospital cardiac clinics is often advocated. 2 ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The use of Doppler ultrasound to detect arterial emboli has major implications for the classification and treatment of stroke. Experimental studies indicate that embolic materials produce different ultrasound signals, depending on their acoustic properties. To examine the possibility of characterizing emboli of different sources in the clinical setting, we compared the em...

Staphylococcus epidermidis is one of the most common causes of infections of prosthetic heart valves (prosthetic valve endocarditis [PVE]) and an increasingly common cause of infections of native heart valves (native valve endocarditis [NVE]). While S. epidermidis typically causes indolent infections of prosthetic devices, including prosthetic valves and intravascular catheters, S. epidermidis ...

Prosthetic heart valve (PHV) replacement replaces a heart disease with another one. There is no ideal prosthetic heart valve. All of the prosthetic heart valves need to be followed by caution. PHV diseases (PHVD) includes a group of pathologic processes like prosthetic valve obstruction, thromboembolism and regurgitation. Correct diagnosis and treatment of these pathologic situations will decre...