The burden of heart valve disease is rising in line with increasing life expectancy and the prevalence of moderate or severe disease is 13% in people aged ≥75 years old.1 The most common lesions are aortic stenosis (Figure 1) due to calcific disease and mitral regurgitation (Figure 2) as a result of mitral prolapse or secondary to left ventricular dysfunction. Untreated valve disease leads to p...

Mitral valve repair offers superior long-term survival, freedom from cardiac morbidity, and quality of life in patients with severe mitral regurgitation compared to medical management and mitral valve replacement; it is the treatment of choice in these patients. Mitral valve repair is the only treatment that restores normal life expectancy to otherwise healthy patients with advanced degenerativ...

A 69-year-old woman with a history of surgical mitral valve repair for severe mitral regurgitation 12 years prior presented with a 6-month history of dyspnea on exertion (NYHA functional class II), exercise intolerance, and swelling of her abdomen and lower limbs. On jugular venous examination, giant systolic pulsations with prominent V-waves, known as the Lancisi sign or C-V waves, were noted ...

BACKGROUND We examined predictors of early and very long-term outcome after combined mitral and tricuspid valve repair for rheumatic disease. METHODS AND RESULTS Between 1974 and 2002, 153 consecutive patients (mean age, 46.0+/-13.2 years) underwent combined mitral and tricuspid valve repair for rheumatic disease. Mitral disease was predominantly stenosis (82.3%); 100% of patients had organic...

BACKGROUND Preoperative factors associated with increased mortality and worse outcome after tricuspid valve replacement in patients with severe tricuspid regurgitation are poorly understood. METHODS AND RESULTS We retrospectively analyzed 189 patients (37% men; age, 67.5±11.3 years) who underwent tricuspid valve replacement for severe tricuspid regurgitation. Operative mortality rate was 10%,...

We report a 71-year-old man with severe mitral valve regurgitation in end stage heart failure intractable to medical treatment. He underwent mitral valve repair, coronary artery bypass grafting and tricuspid annuloplasty, and his postoperative course was uneventful with significant improvement of his symptoms. Mitral valve repair should be considered as a treatment modality in patients with car...

Background—Preoperative factors associated with increased mortality and worse outcome after tricuspid valve replacement in patients with severe tricuspid regurgitation are poorly understood. Methods and Results—We retrospectively analyzed 189 patients (37% men; age, 67.5 11.3 years) who underwent tricuspid valve replacement for severe tricuspid regurgitation. Operative mortality rate was 10%, a...

Pacemaker (PM) induced tricuspid regurgitation (TR) is a common echocardiographic finding. Although mild or moderate TR is frequently observed, severe TR is rare. We report the exceptional observation of a severe TR due to leaflet malcoaptation occurring late after PM implantation and in the following weeks after an aortic valve replacement. Our hypothesis is that the aortic valve surgery has b...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the usefulness of examining the coronary sinus (CS) anatomic diameter as an additional surrogate marker of severity in chronic rheumatic valve disease (RVD). METHODS In this cross-sectional observational study, we echocardiographically analyzed 88 patients with RVD, and 104 normal subjects in the Department of Cardiology, Gaziantep University Medical Faculty, Gaziantep, ...