Thromboembolism continues to complicate the course of patients following aortic valve replacement. In patients with prosthetic and homograft mitral valves, platelet survival time has been shown to correlate with occurrence of thromboembolism. This study extends these observations to patients with aortic valve disease. Platelet survival time was measured (by the chromium-51 method) in 73 patient...

The Starr-Edwards caged ball valve is one of the oldest cardiac valve prosthesis and was widely used all around the world in the past decades. Despite the long-term results that have been reported there are only a few cases reported that exceed 30 years of durability. Here in, we report a 53-year-old patient with a well-functioning 35-year-old aortic Starr-Edwards caged ball prosthesis.

A 59-year-old male who had undergone aortic and mitral valve replacement with Starr-Edwards ball valves 27 years ago was admitted to our hospital for hemolytic anemia and heart failure. Echocardiography revealed prosthetic valve failure with a high-pressure gradient and small effective orifice area. The Starr-Edwards ball valves were successfully replaced with bileaflet mechanical valves. The e...

The speed of closure of the mitral valve during diastole, as recorded by ultrasonocardiography, is reduced in patients with mitral stenosis. A pattern of movement similar to that of severe mitral stenosis is seen in recordingsfrom patients with normally functioning mitral Starr-Edwards prostheses. Simultaneous ultrasound recordings of ball and cage movements show that the prosthetic valve remai...

A mitral Starr-Edwards ball valve has, in three patients with concomitant aortic incompetence, permitted recognition of intermittent premature valve closure by auscultation and this has been documented by phonocardiograms. In two instances the observations were confirmed during cardiac catheterization. The features of premature Starr valve closure are described and the mechanism is discussed.

A case of fatal thrombosis of Starr-Edwards mitral valve prosthesis associated with bacterial endocarditis is presented. The role of inadequate anticoagulation and bacterial endocarditis in the formation of massive thrombus on the valve prosthesis is discussed. The detection of disappearance of a dLstinct click sound in a patient with a previously functioning Starr-Edwards mitral valve prosthes...

Sixty-two patients were investigated for chronic intravascular hemolysis from 3 months to 6iS years following aortic valve replacement; 27 patients had Starr-Edwards prostheses and 35 fascia lata grafts. The findings are suggestive of a significantly higher incidence and degree of hemolysis in patients with Starr-Edwards prostheses compared to those with fascia lata grafts. In both groups regur...

Slater, S. D., Saflam, I. A., Bain, W. H., Turner, M. A., and Lawrie, T. D. V. (1974). Thorax, 29, 624-632. Haemolysis with Bjork-Shiley and Starr-Edwards prosthetic heart valves: a comparative study. A comparison was made of the haemolytic complications in 85 patients with two different types of Starr-Edwards cloth-covered ball and cage prosthesis with those in 44 patients with the Bjork-Shile...

A 45-year-old female suffered from increasing dyspnea during exercise and edema of lower extremities from January 2000. She had undergone mitral valve replacement with Starr-Edwards ball prosthesis (model 6320) due to mitral valve regurgitation 25 years ago. The cardiac catheterization and echocardiography documented mitral, aortic and tricuspid valves regurgitation grade III. Left ventricular ...

he ideal prosthetic valve would have excellent hemodyamics (similar to a normal human valve in the same osition), last a lifetime, be free of structural dysfunction or reakdown, and require no particular medical therapy such s anticoagulation. Needless to say, such a valve is yet to be vailable. However, valvular replacement is still relatively oung—the first successful aortic valve replacement...