Background—Aortic valve replacement with cardiopulmonary bypass is currently the treatment of choice for symptomatic aortic stenosis but carries a significant risk of morbidity and mortality, particularly in patients with comorbidities. Recently, percutaneous transfemoral aortic valve implantation has been proposed as a viable alternative in selected patients. We describe our experience with a ...

The following paper presents a patient with severe aortic stenosis and severely reduced left ventricular ejection fraction with intra-aortic balloon pump counterpulsation support, who underwent transfemoral aortic valve implantation of a CoreValve prosthesis.

in recent socio-economic state it is not possible to have different sets of prosthetic cardiac valves available in the operating room before open-heart surgery for valvular replacement. in this study the diameter of the aortic valve ring measured in 2-d echocardiography was compared with the size of the aortic prosthetic valves implanted for the patients with aortic valvular disease. the purpos...

An 85-year-old woman presented to the emergency department with symptoms of acute heart failure. The patient had an extensive cardiac history, including a bioprosthetic mitral valve replacement (Mosaic II, number 2) in 1994 and a transcatheter transapical Edwards SAPIEN THV 23 mitral valve implant within the mitral bioprosthesis (valve-in-valve implantation) in 2010 because of bioprosthetic val...

surgery for heart diseases during pregnancy, especially necessitating cardiopulmonary bypass, is believed to trigger maternal and fetal risks and should be performed only when medical therapy has been unsuccessful to alleviate the cardiac decompensation. a 33-year-old pregnant woman in her 33rd week of gestation was admitted to our hospital. she had rheumatic mitral valvular stenosis and had un...

Heart valve prosthesis unquestionably improve quality of life and survival of patients with severe valvular heart disease, but the need for antithrombotic therapy to prevent thromboembolic complications is a major challenge to clinicians and their patients. Of the articles analyzed, most were retrospective series of cases or historical cohorts obtained from the database. The few published rando...

BACKGROUND Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance is often used to evaluate patients after heart valve replacement. This study systematically analyses the influence of heart valve prostheses on phase contrast measurements in a phantom trial. METHODS Two biological and one mechanical aortic valve prostheses were integrated in a flow phantom. B0 maps and phase contrast measurements were acquired at ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the feasibility of minimally invasive transapical beating heart aortic valve implantation (TAP-AVI) for high-risk patients with aortic stenosis. METHODS TAP-AVI was performed via a small anterolateral minithoracotomy with or without femoral extracorporeal circulation (ECC) on the beating heart. A pericardial xenograft fixed within a stainless steel, balloon expandable st...

BACKGROUND Several centers favor replacing a diseased native heart valve with a tissue rather than a mechanical prosthesis, even in younger adult patients. However, long-term data supporting this approach are lacking. We examined the survival implications of selecting a tissue versus a mechanical prosthesis at initial left-heart valve replacement in a cohort of adults <60 years of age who were ...

Between 1998 and 2004 approximately 400,000 people died in Germany from cardiovascular disease, with heart valve disease playing a significant role. Heart valve disease can lead to stenoses or insufficiency. In 2006, heart valve operations nationwide increased to 20,000. The implantation of heart valves demands great skill and experience of the heart surgeon. To date, location of implantation w...