We describe a 73 year-old patient with mitral valve pericardial bioprosthesis Carpentier-Edwards 29M implanted due to the rheumatic mitral stenosis 21 years ago. Hemodynamic destabilisation had emerged 18 months before the admission. Echocardiography revealed significant bioprosthesis degeneration with calcification of its leaflets, small pannus on the bioprosthetic ring, moderate mitral stenos...

Background Mitral valve repair (MVR) shows clinical and economic superiority over mitral valve replacement in patients with dystrophic and rheumatic regurgitation, but outcomes are less certain in chronic ischemic mitral regurgitation (IMR). We hypothesize that MVR may have adverse effects on LV hemodynamics resulting from suboptimal annuloplasty geometry and post-repair mitral valve stenosis w...

ital, T tal, Te c aort A 53-year-old woman presented to our center with progressive fatigue and dyspnea on exertion (New York Heart Association functional class III). The patient’s medical history was significant for multiple cardiac interventions: open mitral commissurotomy for the treatment of rheumatic mitral stenosis 30 years earlier, mitral valve replacement for the treatment of severe mit...

A lthough the incidence of mitral stenosis has declined precipitously in the Western world due to the reduced incidence of rheumatic heart disease, mitral regurgitation remains one of the most common valvular pathologies. Many patients affected by severe mitral valve disease are elderly with multiple comorbidities and are at high risk for traditional open surgical mitral valve repair or replace...

BACKGROUND Myxomatous mitral valve with prolapse are classically seen with abnormal leaflet apposition during contraction of the heart. Hemodynamic disorders can result from eccentric mitral regurgitation usually caused by chordae tendinae rupture or papillary muscle dysfunction. Echocardiography is the gold standard for evaluation of leaflet flail and prolapse due to high sensitivity and speci...

This study is designed to test whether percutaneous balloon mitral valvuloplasty (PBMV) is effective for rheumatic mitral stenosis in Chinese patients with moderate to severe mitral regurgitation. Fifty-six patients with rheumatic mitral valve stenosis were divided into the mild, moderate, and severe regurgitation groups. Cardiac ultrasonography was measured before and 1 to 2 days after PBMV. F...

To determine the value of transesophageal ultrasound in the assessment of cardiac valve prostheses, 14 patients with clinically suspected mitral prosthesis malfunction were studied by transthoracic and transesophageal two-dimensional imaging as well as by color Doppler flow velocity mapping (color Doppler). Patients underwent left ventricular angiography (n = 13), surgery (n =11), or both angio...

OBJECTIVES Ischaemic mitral valve regurgitation is associated with a significant reduction in survival and its treatment in patients undergoing surgical ventricular reconstruction is usually associated with higher perioperative morbidity and mortality. We evaluated our 11-year experience in this cohort of patients. METHODS Between January 2000 and December 2010, a total of 282 patients underw...

We compared clinical (30+/-24 months) and echocardiographic follow-up (22 +/- 20 months) data of 184 consecutive patients with myxomatous degenerative mitral regurgitation (Group A) and 85 consecutive patients with rheumatic mitral regurgitation (Group B) after repair. Selection criteria for rheumatic etiology was predominant mitral regurgitation with valve area >or= 2.0 cm(2) and with no signi...

The valvular disease usually involves two conditions: valvular stenosis and valvular insufficiency. Valvular stenosis occurs when a valve opening is smaller than normal due to stiff or fused leaflets. The narrowed opening may make the heart work very hard to pump blood through it. This can lead to heart failure. All four valves can be stenotic (hardened, restricting blood flow); the conditions ...