Factors predisposing the older person with acute myocardial infarction (MI) to develop heart failure (HF) include an increased prevalence of MI, multivessel coronary artery disease, decreased left ventricular (LV) contractile reserve, impairment of LV diastolic relaxation, increased hypertension, LV hypertrophy, diabetes mellitus, valvular heart disease, and renal insufficiency. HF associated w...

Almost 30 years have passed since the first successful use of an artificial heart valve for the treatment of severe valvular heart disease. Replacement of dysfunctional native heart valves with either mechanical or bioprosthetic materials has become the standard therapy for hemodynamically significant lesions with over 110,000 such procedures performed worldwide in 1988. Despite the general suc...

Introduction Infective endocarditis is defined as the infection of the endocardial surface of the heart, which may include one or more heart valves or the mural endocardium. It results in severe valvular insufficiency, which may lead to congestive heart failure, and myocardial abscesses. One of the most feared complications is thromboembolism, through infected emboli. The purpose of this paper ...

significant number of patients undergoing surA gery for valvular hea, disease suffer from rheumatic involvement or functional insufficiency of the tricuspid valve necessitating its replacement with a prosthe~is.~.' Follow-up studies indicate few significant postoperative complications related to the prosthetic tricuspid ~ a l v e . ~ . ~ Life-threatening obstruction of the prosthesis by thrombu...

In the present study, we assessed whether elevated (> or =15 mmHg) PCWP (pulmonary capillary wedge pressure) can be detected using the blood pressure response to the Valsalva manoeuvre in a group of elderly patients with various cardiac disorders, including atrial fibrillation and valvular heart disease, and healthy elderly controls. The Valsalva manoeuvre was performed in 93 patients (71+/-4 y...

The valvular lesions which but a few years ago were almost the only recognised lesions of the heart, which seemed so difficult to diagnose, and to threaten life so seriously and mysteriously, are nowadays readily discovered, differentiated, and their influence as mechanical hindrances discounted. All the interest and the mystery is now transferred to the state of the cardiac muscle and its nerv...