For treatment of critical heart valve diseases, prosthetic valves perform fairly well in most adults; however, for pediatric patients, there is the added requirement that the replacement valve grows with the child, thus extremely limiting current treatment options. Tissue engineered heart valves (TEHV), such as those derived from autologous bone marrow stem cells (BMSCs), have the potential to ...

OPINION STATEMENT Heart valve disease is a major health burden, treated by either valve repair or valve replacement, depending on the affected valve. Nearly 300,000 valve replacements are performed worldwide per year. Valve replacement is lifesaving, but not without complications. The in situ tissue-engineered heart valve is a promising alternative to current treatments, but the translation of ...

OBJECTIVE To assess the benefit for patients older than 65 years of aortic valve replacement with stentless biological heart valves in comparison with mechanical valves. DESIGN Multiple regression analysis of a retrospective follow up study. SETTING Single cardiothoracic centre. PATIENTS Between 1996 and 2001, 392 patients with a mean age of 74 years underwent aortic valve replacement wit...

Objective: To assess the benefit for patients older than 65 years of aortic valve replacement with stentless biological heart valves in comparison with mechanical valves. Design: Multiple regression analysis of a retrospective follow up study. Setting: Single cardiothoracic centre. Patients: Between 1996 and 2001, 392 patients with a mean age of 74 years underwent aortic valve replacement with ...

This review summarizes the major long-term (> or =10 to 15 years) patient outcomes after insertion of many Food and Drug Administration approved prosthetic heart valves (PHV). Mechanical PHV was associated with a better survival (p < 0.02) at 15 years after aortic valve replacement (AVR) than with a bioprosthesis in the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) trial. In both the DVA and the Edinbur...

BACKGROUND As the prognosis of women with prosthetic heart valves improves, an increasing number are contemplating and undertaking pregnancy. Accurate knowledge of perinatal outcomes is essential, assisting counseling and guiding care. The aims of this study were to assess outcomes in a contemporary population of women with heart valve prostheses undertaking pregnancy and to compare outcomes fo...

Submitted for the DFD16 Meeting of The American Physical Society Fluid-structure interaction in the left ventricle of the human heart coupled with mitral valve VALENTINA MESCHINI, Gran Sasso Science Institute, MARCO DONATO DE TULLIO, Politecnico di Bari, GIORGIO QUERZOLI, Universit di Cagliari, ROBERTO VERZICCO, Universit di Roma Tor Vergata and University of Twente — In this paper Direct Numer...

Despite continuous improvement in the field, the ideal prosthetic heart valve remains to be developed. Patients with mechanical prosthetic heart valves are at risk of thrombosis and systemic embolism. The incidence rate of these serious complications is significantly reduced by lifelong Oral Anticoagulant Therapy (OAC) vitamin K antagonist (VKA) therapy. Despite its undeniable benefits, VKA the...

the patient was a 19 year-old woman with the diagnosis of resistant hypertension, although she was under treatment of three classes of anti-hypertensive drugs (beta blocker, angiotensin receptor blocker, diuretic) for more than one year. in physical examination there was only a significant difference between the systolic blood pressure of upper and lower extremities (200 vs. 120 mmhg), without ...

OBJECTIVE Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) is a rare coagulation disorder associated with recurrent arterial and venous thrombotic events. Heart valve abnormalities are commonly found in patients with APS. METHODS From March 1998 to March 2007, nine patients with APS underwent heart valve surgery using cardiopulmonary bypass. We retrospectively reviewed their clinical data, operative and posto...