In 14 consecutive patients with varying myocardial function, evaluation of the Valsalva maneuver was performed using aortic pulse pressure decay to investigate a possible quantitative relationship between the pattern of response and the degree of myocardial dysfunction. The aortic pulse pressure response during strain correlated with resting left ventricular end-diastolic pressure and pulmonary...

Lifting of a heavy weight may lead to "blackout" and occasionally also to cerebral hemorrhage, indicating pronounced consequences for the blood flow through the brain. We hypothesized that especially strenuous respiratory straining (a Valsalva-like maneuver) associated with intense static exercise would lead to a precipitous rise in mean arterial and central venous pressures and, in turn, influ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Cardiac right-to-left shunts can be identified by transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) and by transcranial Doppler ultrasound (TCD) with the use of different contrast agents and different provocation procedures. Currently, data on an appropriate time window for the appearance of contrast bubbles in the TCD recording after the injection of the contrast medium and the com...

BACKGROUND Sinus of Valsalva-right ventricle fistula is a recognized but very rare complication after surgical repair of subaortic ventricular septal defect. Surgical repair with cardiopulmonary bypass and percutaneous transcatheter closure guided by x-ray has been the traditional treatment for fistula of sinus of Valsalva. CASE PRESENTATION Recently, we have used a novel approach, that avoid...

Sinus of Valsalva aneurysm is a rare cardiac anomaly with wide spectrum of clinical presentation ranging from asymptomatic state to dreadful complications due to compression of vital surrounding structures or aortic dissection. There are only few reported cases of sinus of Valsalva aneurysm presented with cardiac arrhythmias including complete heart block. We herein, present a case of a 50 year...

Coronary anomalies are rare angiographic findings. Moreover, there are few reports of cases of an anomalous origin of the right coronary artery from the left sinus of Valsalva and of the left coronary artery from the posterior sinus of Valsalva. Here, we report a case with an anomalous origin of the right coronary artery from the ascending aorta above the left sinus of Valsalva and the left cor...

Sinus of Valsalva aneurysm is a rare anomaly, most often caused by a congenital absence of muscular and elastic tissue in the aortic wall of the sinus of Valsalva. It was first described in 1938. The incidence is higher in eastern than western populations. Various surgical repair techniques have been reported with good results. In this case, a 61 years old man, with history of aortic valve repl...

We report the successful surgical treatment of a case of aortic valve destruction and pseudoaneurysm of the sinus of Valsalva associated with infective endocarditis (IE) in an 80-year-old woman. Multidetector-row computed tomography revealed an abnormal cavity in the left posterior aortic root. We had made the diagnosis of the aortic valve destruction and saccular pseudoaneurysm of the sinus of...