The Doppler echocardiographic characteristics of 70 prosthetic valves in 35 patients are reported. Twenty nine patients had a Björk-Shiley prosthesis in both mitral and tricuspid positions and six had Carpentier-Edwards valves in both sites. Five of the patients had abnormal tricuspid prostheses on the basis of clinical and echocardiographic criteria. Pulsed wave Doppler echocardiography was us...

BACKGROUND No large prospective studies have evaluated the efficacy of fibrinolytic therapy for left-sided prosthetic valve thrombosis, yet it remains the first line of treatment in developing countries. METHODS AND RESULTS We performed a randomized controlled trial comparing an accelerated infusion with the conventional infusion of streptokinase in 120 patients with a first episode of left-s...

INTRODUCTION Pregnant women with mechanical prosthetic heart valves are at increased risk for valve thrombosis. Management decisions for this life-threatening complication are complex. Open-heart surgery has a very high risk of maternal mortality and fetal loss. Bleeding and embolic risks associated with thrombolytic agents, the limited efficacy of thrombolysis in certain subgroups, and a lack ...

We report a case of supra-annular mitral valve replacement for a patient with prosthetic ring endocarditis that developed late after undergoing undersized mitral annuloplasty (UMAP). A 58year-old man had undergone left ventriculoplasty and UMAP with a 26-mm semi-rigid full ring for dilated cardiomyopathy and functional mitral regurgitation. The mitral valve had progressively stenosed and he dev...

A 62-year-old female with Osler's disease was admitted to our hospital because of fever and cardiac failure. The patient had undergone a mitral valve replacement (MVR) using a Carpentier-Edwards prosthetic valve 14 years earlier. A bacterial examination of arterial blood identified Streptococcus mitis. No arteriovenous malformations were detected in visceral organs. The patient underwent MVR us...

OBJECTIVES We sought to determine the clinical and echocardiographic parameters that differentiate thrombus from pannus formation as the etiology of obstructed mechanical prosthetic valves. BACKGROUND Distinction of thrombus from pannus on obstructed prosthetic valves is essential because thrombolytic therapy has emerged as an alternative to reoperation. METHODS We analyzed clinical, transt...

Prosthetic valves may make ventricular access difficult in radiofrequency catheter ablation. This case report describes an optimized atrial transseptal approach to access the ventricle in a patient with left ventricular tachycardia and a mechanical prosthetic aortic valve.

Two cases of prosthetic valve dysfunction resulting in acute massive mitral regurgitation are reported; emergency operation was successful in both cases. Survival following complete dislodgement of the occluder of a disc valve, as occurred in one case, does not appear to have been reported before. The diffculty in diagnosis of sudden cardiac decompensation in patients with prosthetic valves is ...