A significant prosthetic paravalvular leak is an uncommon and severe postsurgical complication correlated to the occurrence of congestive heart failure and hemolytic anemia. Percutaneous treatment has become an attractive and effective proposal to relieve symptoms and reduce complications in patients whose high rate of morbidity/mortality precludes a new surgery. This is the case of an 81-year-...

An increasing number of reports reveal the safety and efficacy of catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation therapy even in patients with a history of prosthetic heart valve. This case report presents a 60 year old female patient who had a prosthetic mitral paravalvular leak as a complication of radiofrequency ablation. Surgery revealed a 15 mm hole and three broken knots in the posterolateral ...

Almost 30 years have passed since the first successful use of an artificial heart valve for the treatment of severe valvular heart disease. Replacement of dysfunctional native heart valves with either mechanical or bioprosthetic materials has become the standard therapy for hemodynamically significant lesions with over 110,000 such procedures performed worldwide in 1988. Despite the general suc...

This is the first report of an unusual fatal complication associated with the Starr-Edwards prosthetic aortic valve holder. The patient died 51 days after replacement of his aortic valve with a Starr-Edwards prosthetic aortic valve. The cause of death was coronary arterial embolus caused by a fragment broken off of the prosthetic aortic valve holder.

Although renal failure is one of the known comorbidities associated with rapid progression of aortic stenosis, it is unclear whether hemodialysis alters the progression of prosthetic aortic valve stenosis. We describe a 79-year-old female who underwent bioprosthetic aortic valve replacement 8 years ago with stable prosthetic valve area for the initial 6 years. In the last two years, coinciding ...

Fungal endocarditis is a rare and fatal condition. The Candida and Aspergillus species are the two most common etiologic fungi found responsible for fungal endocarditis. Fever and changing heart murmur are the most common clinical manifestations. Some patients may have a fever of unknown origin as the onset symptom. The diagnosis of fungal endocarditis is challenging, and diagnosis of prostheti...

Reference to this organ, which perhaps was not commonplace in the scientific literature 15 years ago, has become exceedingly prevalent in the past 5 years. The field of heart valve research has become contemporary due to a heightened awareness of the seriousness and frequency of heart valve disease. Indeed, valve therapies are still extremely limited for patients above the age of 75 or less tha...

Abstract Background Prosthetic Heart Valves are always more frequent in the clinical practice. Particularly, sometimes than one native valve is affected and needs to be surgically treated. On other side, replaced prosthesis could also degenerate over time, leading worsening symptomatic heart failure. There no many cases of combined percutaneous approach both aortic mitral prosthetic deteriorati...

Between 1961 and 1984, 91 patients underwent simultaneous triple valve replacement at the Mayo Clinic. Of the 273 prosthetic valves used, 77% were Starr-Edwards. Perioperative (30 day) mortality was 24% to 27% between 1962 and 1974 and 7% between 1975 and 1983 (p = .17). In patients with NYHA class IV symptoms, perioperative mortality was 44%, and in those with milder symptoms, it was 8% (p les...

The authors investigated the index ofpulmonary bloodflow distribution between the upper and lower parts of the lungs in three groups ofpatients with acquired valvular heart disease before, and 3 and 12 months after surgical correction for mitral and aortic valve disease. Three and 12 months after mitral valvotomy, there was a statistically significant decrease in the perfusion of the upper part...