Eight patients with complex rheumatic heart disease underwent the MAZE procedure combined with mitral valve replacement. Some of the patients also required aortic valve surgery or tricuspid repair. There was one early death related to a stroke. The remaining patients have been followed from 3 to 19 mo. Atrial fibrillation was ablated in all patients. Six patients are in sinus rhythm and one pat...

Mitral valve replacement (MVR) is usually performed in two methods of running and interrupted suturing. In running method, the suturing of the valve is usually with some traction on the annulus and also there is a risk of aortic valve injury. This study was conducted to evaluate a new technique for suturing to avoid these complications and decrease the time of cardiac arrest. One hundred an...

Background: Rheumatic fever (RF) is an inflammatory disease of the heart after a pharyngitis by Group-A beta haemolytic streptococci. The pathogenetic mechanisms highlight a complex interplay of immunological, genetic and environmental factors. Immunity gene polymorphisms, in relation to susceptibility to RF, have been studied by many investigators, and IL-1 α has been the focus of attention. A...

during a period of four years between june, is, 1988 to june, is, 1992 one hundred and fourteen patients with congestive heart failure (chf) were admitted to the pediatric department of taleghani general hospital. during the above period, 192 patients with heart disease were hospitalized at this department and chf was the cause of admission in 59.4% of them. congenital heart disease (cho) was t...

Molecular mimicry is a hallmark of the pathogenesis of rheumatic fever where the streptococcal group A carbohydrate epitope, N-acetyl glucosamine, and the a-helical coiled-coil streptococcal M protein structurally mimic cardiac myosin in the human disease, rheumatic carditis, and in animal models immunized with streptococcal M protein and cardiac myosin. Recent studies have unraveled the potent...

Rheumatic heart disease, often neglected by media and policy makers, is a major burden in developing countries where it causes most of the cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in young people, leading to about 250,000 deaths per year worldwide. The disease results from an abnormal autoimmune response to a group A streptococcal infection in a genetically susceptible host. Acute rheumatic fever...

The diagnosis of acute rheumatic fever is a clinical challenge and depends on the possibility of the disease being borne in mind. Although the complete eradication of rheumatic fever from the Western world has not been achieved, the disease is often forgotten in the differential diagnosis of a patient with fever and polyarthralgia or arthritis. Rheumatic fever remains an important acquired card...

infective endocarditis is an uncommon heart disease with a variable incidence, mostly related to the ever-increasing development of cardiac surgery and the longer survival of patients with congenital heart disease (chd). thirty-seven episodes of infective endocarditis (ie) were evaluated in 36 children (under 15 years of age) admitted to hospitals affiliated to shiraz university of medical scie...

The surgical procedures used to treat mitral valve disease have changed in the last 30 years. The aim of this study was to assess trends in surgical procedures for mitral valve disease at the Jikei University Hospital. From 1972 to 2003,770 patients with mitral valve disease underwent one of following procedures in our department:closed mitral commissurotomy,open mitral commissurotomy,mitral va...