introduction brucella endocarditis, although an uncommon complication of brucellosis, is the main cause of the mortality related to this disease. the best therapy is a combination of antibiotic administration with valve replacement. after treatment of the first episode of endocarditis, new infection may be occurred as a relapse or reinfection. case presentation in this report, we described a pa...

OBJECTIVE In the surgical treatment of acute aortic valve infective endocarditis (IE), the long-term outcome depending on the choice of valve replacement remains uncertain. We aimed to compare the impact on 5-year mortality of use of three types of implanted valves: bioprosthesis (heterograft), mechanical prosthesis and homograft. METHODS A total of 167 patients with a definite aortic valve I...

Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.ejcts.2007.02.008. Fig. 1. The view of On-X valve from ascending aorta in systole and diastole. Surface of the mechanical valve leaflets could be seen clearly without contrast medium. They opened symmetrically and the opening angle of this artificial valve was appropriate. Fig. 2. The motion of...

The first mechanical heart valve prosthesis, designed by Dr Charles Hufnagel, was implanted to the descending aorta of a 30-year-old woman with severe aortic regurgitation in 1952.1 Eight years after the initial successful prosthetic valve implantation, Dr Harken sutured a prosthetic valve (Starr Edwards Valve) to the aortic annulus after removing the diseased native valve. During the ensuing y...

Thrombosis of a mechanical prosthetic valve is a serious and fortunately it is a rare complication of cardiac valve replacement. We present a case of prosthetic mechanical valve On-X 31/33 mm thrombosis thrombus size 8 x 14 mm on a mitral position, which was treated with a successful intravenous thrombolytic therapy of streptokinase infusion over 10 hours repeated twice with no complications.

Table 1 Reported cases of well functioning mechanical valve without anticoagulation Reference Mean age n Type of Position Mean follow-up Treatment with Peak (years) valve (n) of valve period without anticoagulation gradient anticoagulation (months) across (years) valve thrombotic prophylaxis are from non-randomized case series without controls w2x. Uncomplicated functioning without anticoagulat...

The behaviour of the cryogenically treated En52 martensitic valve steel has been experimentally analyzed in this paper. Material samples are subjected to deep cryogenic treatment after completing the regular heat treatment. The critical properties of the valve steel like wear resistance, hardness, tensile strength and impact strength are evaluated for the cryo treated En52 valve steel samples a...

1 of 2 DESCRIPTION A 29-year-old woman presented with pulmonary oedema and low cardiac output. Her mitral valve was replaced 20 years back with a Sorin mechanical valve. She had stopped anticoagulants a month back on her own for excessive menstrual bleeding. Echo showed a gradient of 26 mm Hg across the valve with regurgitation. Fluroscopy confi rmed limited disc opening of only 15° with incomp...

BACKGROUND The closure sound of the ATS bileaflet mechanical valve is said to be quieter than that of the other mechanical valves. However, the reasons for this are still unknown. In this study, we investigated the reasons for the quietness of the ATS valve closure sound. PATIENTS AND METHODS The valve closure sound was evaluated in 70 patients and in another 70 patients in whom the SJM valve...

BACKGROUND We evaluated all adult St. Jude mechanical valve recipients at our institution since the initial implant in January 1979 and now present our 25-year experience. METHODS Nine hundred forty-five valve recipients were followed prospectively at 12-month intervals from January 1979 to December 2007. RESULTS Operative mortality was 3% in the aortic valve recipients and 5% in the mitral...