giant left atria are defined as those measuring larger than 8 cm and are typically found in patients who have rheumatic mitral valve disease with severe regurgitation. enlargement of the left atrium may create compression of the surrounding structures such as the esophagus, pulmonary veins, respiratory tract, lung, inferior vena cava, recurrent laryngeal nerve, and thoracic vertebrae and lead t...

abstract background: few attempts were made for alleviating the physical/psychological problems among the cardiac valve–replaced patients and no comprehensive study was done based on the experiences of such patients. this study was undertaken to describe the stressful experiences of the heart valve-replaced patients. materials and methods: in this qualitative study performed during 2012-2013 wi...

Cardiovascular diseases are a worldwide problem being a significant cause of morbity and mortality every year. Patients requiring heart valve replacements include those exhibiting degenerative valvular diseases and rheumatic fever. The pathological processes include stenosis, fibrosis, myxoid change and calcification. The fibrosis causes a reaction to normal haemodynamic while the myxoid change...

Cryopreserved heart and vascular allografts are major prostheses of choice in cardiac surgery today, used in variety of treatment situations. Right and left ventricular outflow tract reconstruction in congenital heart diseases, cases of infective endocarditis, mitral valve plasty, and aortic aneurysm of infective etiology are the major indications for allograft use. Saphenous vein grafts with s...

Since most complications related to operation of prosthetic heart valves are due to disturbances of flow, its hydrodynamic characterization is a useful aid in the design of new prostheses. Besides durability and biological response to implant, these prostheses should provide a favorable hemodynamic profile, considering that there is a great clinical interest focused on the haemolysis of blood. ...

T he first successful heart valve replacements were carried out in 1960 with the use of mechanical prostheses.1-3 Because of the risk of throm-boembolism that is inherent to all mechanical prosthe-ses and the hazards of continuous anticoagulation, fewer thrombogenic tissue valves were developed.4,5 In the early 1960s, homograft replacement of the aortic valve was reported,6'7 and shortly therea...

Abstract Well documented shortcomings of current heart valve substitutes – biological and mechanical prostheses make them imperfect choices for patients diagnosed with disease, in need a cardiac replacement. Regenerative Medicine Tissue Engineering represent the research grounds next generation valvular Heart Valves (TEHV). Mimicking structure function native valves, TEHVs are three dimensional...