Introduction The result of surgical ablation of atrial fibrillation remains controversial, although prospective and randomized studies have shown significant differences in the return to sinus rhythm in patients treated with ablation versus control group. Surgery of the Labyrinth, proposed by Cox and colleagues, is complex and increases the morbidity rate. Therefore, studies are needed to confi...

The medical records of all patients discharged with the diagnosis of "infective endocarditis", "subacute bacterial endocarditis (SBE)," "acute bacterial endocarditis (ABE)," and "bacterial endocarditis" from March 1977, to February 1987, were reviewed. 84 cases fulfilled the criteria of endocarditis. Sixty-one percent were male and the mean age was 25.7 years. 57% were culture-negative and ...

BACKGROUND At present, no medical therapy is known to affect the progression of rheumatic mitral stenosis (MS). We sought to assess the effect of statin treatment on long-term progression of MS in a large population. METHODS AND RESULTS From our 20-year database, we identified all patients with rheumatic MS with > or =2 echocardiographies > or =1 year apart. Exclusion criteria were previous i...

MUCH has been written relative to the physiologic abnormalities produced by mitral stenosis and insufficiency. Most of the data and the concepts derived therefrom have been obtained by right heart catheterization.'--8 The introduction of left heart and combined heart catheterization9-19 has greatly enhanced the value of physiologic study in patients with rheumatic mitral valve disease and has p...

Background Congenital Heart Disease and Rheumatic Heart Disease are the most common childhood cardiac disease encountered in developing countries. Objective To study the pattern and the prevalence of cardiac diseases, its age wise distribution and to determine their risk factors for mortality in children presented to Dhulikhel Hospital, Kathmandu University Hospital. Method A study of cardiac d...

atively common finding in the setting of long-standing rheumatic valve disease, first described by Oppenheimer in 1912 (1). It is thought to be promoted by the action of chronic strain forces on atrial walls and repeated attacks of endocarditis, but the condition does not always evolve in the same way and the interatrial septum is not usually involved (1, 2). In many patients, the condition is ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical and epidemiological profile of patients with valvular heart disease who arrived decompensated at the emergency department of a university hospital in Brazil. METHODS A descriptive analysis of clinical and echocardiographic data of 174 patients with severe valvular disease, who were clinically decompensated and went to the emergency department of a tertiary c...

To investigate the mechanism that increases the orifice area of the mitral valve during balloon dilatation 43 surgically excised intact rheumatic mitral valves were studied. The main pathological features were (a) fibrosis of mitral valve leaflets and commissures (10 valves); (b) fibrosis with calcification of one commissure (eight anterolateral, seven posteromedial); (c) fibrosis with calcific...

BACKGROUND Heart valve surgery outcomes are unknown in middle-income countries and thus cannot be used in health system decision making processes. This study estimated in-hospital mortality and medium and long-term survival. METHODS This was a retrospective study of 78,806 patients who underwent heart valve surgery between 2001 and 2007 in Brazil. Two national databases were used, the Hospita...

Valvular epithelioid hemangioendotheliomas (EHE) are exceptional. To the authors' knowledge only four cases have been reported. Herein is described an EHE incidentally detected in the mitral valve of a 69-year-old woman with chronic rheumatic valvular heart disease. The 0.4 cm lesion was situated in the anterior leaflet and was discovered in the pathological study after mitral valve replacement...