The diagnosis of infective endocarditis with its multiple clinical and morphological manifestations remains a challenging task. The von Reyn criteria, published in 1981, focused mainly on clinical and pathological findings in combination with positive blood culture to diagnose infective endocarditis. They were helpful to standardise diagnostic criteria, but their positive and negative predictiv...

Thirty-five consecutive patients with ventricular septal defect (VSD) associated with aortic insufficiency (AI) who underwent corrective surgery are presented. There were seven operative and three late deaths among the patients operated upon before 1968. No death, however, was encountered among the most recent 18 consecutive patients. The VSD was closed directly in 14 patients and with a Teflon...

The impact of anaemia on patients undergoing aortic valve surgery is poorly understood. Anaemia is associated with aortic valve surgery. A recent article by Elmistekawy et al. [1] demonstrated that preoperative anaemia is a common finding in patients undergoing aortic valve surgery and is an important and potentially modifiable risk factor for postoperative morbidity and mortality. This analysi...

Aortic Regurgitation is also known as Aortic Insufficiency (AI). It indicates the inability of the aortic valve. During diastole, the aortic valve allows blood flow in the reverse direction from aorta into the left ventricle. Regurgitation is due to incompetence of the aortic valve or any disorder of the valvular apparatus (e.g., leaflets, annulus of the aorta) ensuing in diastolic flow of bloo...

A 47-year-old female patient presented with congestive heart failure [New York Heart Association (NYHA) Class III]. A coronary angiogram showed calcified coronary arteries without any significant stenosis. Echocardiography showed a tricuspid aortic valve with grade III aortic insufficiency. A computed tomography (CT) scan of the thorax showed an aneurysm of the aortic root and the ascending aor...

We present a patient with severe aortic valvular bioprosthesis dysfunction implanted for 11 years, presenting with acute pulmonary edema due to severe valvular insufficiency with severe systolic dysfunction (EF <30%) and comorbid conditions that amounted operative risk (STS score > 10). We carried out the transcatheter aortic valve implantation (Inovare® - Braile Biomedica), which was implement...

Pulsed Doppler echocardiography was used to determine prospectively the prevalence of mitral, aortic, tricuspid and pulmonary regurgitation in 80 consecutive patients with mitral valve prolapse and 85 normal subjects with similar age and sex distribution. Mitral valve prolapse was defined by posterior systolic displacement of the mitral valve on M-mode echocardiography of 3 mm or more (40 patie...

Valvular involvement by disease causes stenosis, insufficiency (regurgitation or incompetence), or both. Stenosis is the failure of a valve to open completely, thereby impeding forward flow. Insufficiency, in contrast, results from failure of a valve to close completely, thereby allowing reversed flow. These abnormalities can be either pure, when only stenosis or regurgitation is present, or mi...

Background/Introduction Better understanding of hemodynamic alterations caused by long-term use of continuous-flow left ventricular assist devices (LVAD) is necessary to evaluate their impact onto the native heart and major vessels. In particular, aortic insufficiency is a known complication after LVAD implantation and may be related to alteration of pressure distribution on the leaflets of the...