BACKGROUND Globally, rheumatic heart disease (RHD) remains an important cause of heart disease. In Australia it particularly affects older non-Indigenous Australians and Aboriginal Australians and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples. Factors associated with the choice of treatment for advanced RHD remain variable and poorly understood. METHODS The Australian and New Zealand Society of Cardiac a...

A vast unmet need exists for tricuspid valve (TV) repair for functional tricuspid regurgitation (FTR) among patients undergoing left heart valve surgery. The FTR is a dynamic entity that is governed by several pathophysiologic mechanisms like TV annular dilatation, annular shape, pulmonary hypertension, left or right ventricle dysfunction, right ventricle geometry, and leaflet tethering. Treatm...

conclusions preservation of mitral annulus and papillary muscle continuity may enhance post- mvr cardiac performance with low mortality and morbidity rates. the risk of pvd was not significantly higher than conventional mvr in our series. results the improvement of functional status was seen in almost all survivors but was more obvious in the group i. in early follow-up, 56.4% of group i cases ...

CONTEXT Complicated, left-sided native valve endocarditis causes significant morbidity and mortality in adults. The presumed benefits of valve surgery remain unproven due to lack of randomized controlled trials. OBJECTIVE To determine whether valve surgery is associated with reduced mortality in adults with complicated, left-sided native valve endocarditis. DESIGN AND SETTING Retrospective,...

transcatheter aortic valve implantation (tavi) is a new therapeutic option for patients with severe aortic stenosis with unacceptable surgical risk for conventional aortic valve surgery. a bicuspid aortic valve (bav) is the most common congenital cardiac disorder (1% of the population) and currently is considered exclusion criteria for tavi, because it predicts an increased risk of adverse aort...

Heart valve disease is a very common medical condition; the most frequent aetiology is degenerative valve disease, mainly represented by calcific aortic stenosis in the elderly. In developing countries, valvular heart disease triggered by rheumatic fever is the most important aetiology and can lead to a heterogeneous heart valve disease, mainly represented by mitral stenosis in young female pat...

Sutureless aortic valve replacement (AVR) was developed as an alternative treatment option to conventional open-heart surgery and transcatheter aortic valve implantation for "gray zone" patients. The need for concurrent mitral valve surgery is generally viewed as a contraindication to sutureless AVR. The purpose of this brief paper is to report our experiences with sutureless valves in patients...

Since its early days, cardiac surgery has typically involved large incisions with complete access to the heart and the great vessels. After the popularization of the minimally invasive techniques in general surgery, cardiac surgeons began to experiment with minimal access techniques in the early 1990s. Although the goals of minimally invasive cardiac surgery (MICS) are fairly well established a...