INTRODUCTION Aortic heart valve dysfunction is commonly treated with replacement of the valve. To overcome the shortcomings of currently used mechanical valves, xenografts and homografts, efforts are being made to create fully autologous heart valve replacements using the concepts of tissue engineering. To this end autologous cells are seeded onto pre-shaped biodegradable scaffolds and cultured...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Although cerebral microemboli are often detected by transcranial Doppler ultrasonography in mechanical heart valve patients, the clinical significance of such microemboli is unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency and composition of cerebral microemboli in a prosthetic heart valve population and to correlate these findings to cerebrovascular symptoms...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of the prosthesis type on early mortality and long-term survival after re-replacement of aortic valve prosthesis, especially in patients over 60 years old. METHODS Late outcome of 223 patients who underwent a reoperation on the aortic valve and received a mechanical (mechanical group) or biological (biological group) heart valve...

BACKGROUND The type of cardiac valve replacement associated with the lowest health risks for young women who may undergo pregnancies is unknown. We investigated which valve type was associated with greatest patient and valve survival and the effect of pregnancy on valve loss. METHODS AND RESULTS In this retrospective study, all women 12 to 35 years old who underwent valve replacements between...

Approximately 85,000 valve substitutes are implanted in the United States and 275,000 worldwide each year, of which approximately half are mechanical valves and half are bioprosthetic valves. Despite the marked improvements in prosthetic valve design and surgical procedures over the past decades, valve replacement is not a panacea for the patient. Instead, native valve disease is traded for pro...

Background—It is suggested that in young adults the Ross procedure results in better late patient survival compared with mechanical prosthesis implantation. We performed a propensity score–matched study that assessed late survival in young adult patients after a Ross procedure versus that after mechanical aortic valve replacement with optimal self-management anticoagulation therapy. Methods and...

Calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) is a chronic disorder characterized by an abnormal mineralization of the leaflets, which is accelerated in bicuspid aortic valve (BAV). It is suspected that mechanical strain may promote/enhance mineralization of the aortic valve. However, the effect of mechanical strain and the involved pathways during mineralization of the aortic valve remains largely unkn...

objective: the incidence of heart valve disease is increasing worldwide and the number of heart valve replacements is expected to increase in the future. by mimicking the main tissue structures and properties of heart valve, tissue engineering offers new options for the replacements. applying an appropriate scaffold in fabricating tissue-engineered heart valves (tehvs) is of importance since it...

The rate of redo surgeries are increasing on account of previously performed coronary artery bypass graft surgeries, aortic/ mitral valve replacement surgeries due to valve stenosis/ regurgitation, mitral valve repair for ischemic mitral regurgitation, the aging in the population, mechanical valve thrombosis and wearing out of the mechanical valves.Resternotomy, anterolateral right thoracotomy ...

BACKGROUND In patients after aortic valve surgery, the quality of life is hypothesized to be influenced by the type of the valve procedure. A cross-sectional study on the postoperative quality of life was carried out in patients after aortic valve-sparing surgery (with regards to the age of the patient), Ross procedure and mechanical aortic valve replacement. METHODS Quality of life was studi...