Identifying the pathogen responsible for culture-negative valve endocarditis often depends on molecular studies performed on surgical specimens. A patient with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome who had an aortic graft, a mechanical aortic valve, and a mitral anulloplasty ring presented with culture-negative prosthetic valve endocarditis and aortic graft infection. Research-based polymerase chain reaction ...

A St. Jude Medical Silzone was implanted in a 72-year-old female, suffering from mitral valve disease. Four months later, the patient had acute cardiac failure due to partial detachment of the prosthetic valve. The mitral annulus was ulcerated and there were multiple erosions in the myocardial tissue in contact with the prosthetic valve. Histological examination revealed chronic inflammation wi...

Introduction: Prosthetic valve thrombosis is a rare and severe complication of valve replacement, most often encountered with a mechanical prosthesis. The significant morbidity and mortality associated with this condition warrant rapid diagnostic evaluation. Although surgery is the first-line therapy in symptomatic obstructive mechanical valve thrombosis, thrombolytic therapy has been used as a...

BACKGROUND Percutaneous aortic valve implantation by an antegrade transvenous approach has been described but is problematic. Retrograde prosthetic aortic valve implantation via the femoral artery has potential advantages. Percutaneous prosthetic aortic valve implantation via the femoral arterial approach is described and the initial experience reported. METHODS AND RESULTS The valve prosthes...

The introduction of valve replacement surgery in the early 1960s has dramatically improved the outcome of patients with valvular heart disease. Approximately 90 000 valve substitutes are now implanted in the United States and 280 000 worldwide each year; approximately half are mechanical valves and half are bioprosthetic valves. Despite the marked improvements in prosthetic valve design and sur...

OBJECTIVE Midterm clinical outcome was evaluated after aortic root replacement with Freestyle® stentless aortic root bioprostheses. METHODS Between April 1996 and December 2007, 301 patients underwent aortic valve replacement with stentless Medtronic Freestyle® bioprostheses in full-root technique at a single center. Concomitant coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) was required in 96 patien...

https://e-kcj.org A 40-year-old male was admitted to the cardiac care unit (CCU) due to severe pneumonia associated with unstable hemodynamics. Meanwhile, a grade 3–4 systolic murmur was heard at the left lower sternal border. Tracing his history back, he had undergone mitral valve replacement with a Björk-Shiley convexoconcave prosthetic valve (single tilting disc mechanical valve) 25 years be...

Patients with metallic prosthetic heart valves have to use anticoagulants throughout their life because of avoiding prosthetic valve thrombosis. We report the case of a patient with a prosthetic aortic valve without any event to date despite not using warfarin for 31 years. A 53-year-old man who underwent aortic valve replacement (AVR) with a mechanical valve (Medtronic,Inc., Minneapolis, Mines...

Thrombosis of mechanical heart valve prosthesis is a rare fatal complication after heart valve replacement. This report describes an old female patient with aortic prosthetic valve thrombosis who had a successful fibrinolytic treatment.

Sixty percent of the patients going for valve replacement opt for mechanical valves and the remaining 40% choose bioprosthetics. Mechanical valves are known to have a higher risk of thrombosis; this risk further varies depending on the type of valve, its position, and certain individual factors. According to current guidelines, long-term anticoagulation is indicated in patients with metallic pr...