Severe valvular heart disease comprises a group of lesions that impose a hemodynamic burden on potentially all 4 cardiac chambers. This burden is eventually fatal if left untreated by timely valve repair or valve replacement. However, defining the word timely is fraught with uncertainty. Ideally, the procedure should occur early enough to spare the patient from irreversible left or right ventri...

Objectives Biological prostheses for surgical aortic valve replacement (sAVR) are increasingly being considered in patients < 60 years of age. Likely, preserving the option of performing a transcatheter valve-in-valve (ViV) procedure in cases of structural valve deterioration has contributed to this development. We assessed the use pattern in sAVR over an 11-year period. Methods From 2002 throu...

I n the article by Lawley et al, “Heart Valve Prostheses in Pregnancy: Outcomes for Women and Their Infants,” which published online June 26, 2014, and appeared in the June 2014 issue of the journal (J Am Heart Assoc. 2014;3:e000953 doi: 10.1161/JAHA.114.000953), a correction is needed. In the abstract, the first sentence read, “As the prognosis of women with prosthetic heart valves improves, a...

Active infective endocarditis (AIE) is a serious septic risk for all patients, especially if prostheses in conventional aortic valve replacements (AVR) or transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) are afflicted [1]. Indications for urgent operative debridement and valve replacement in complicated cases of AIE that cannot always be managed with conventional appropriate antibiotic therapy su...

a total of 14 cases of infective endocarditis (ie) in children aged 6 months to 10 years were seen from december 1987 to december 1992 at the pediatric unit of ayatollah taleghani medical center. the majority of patients (12 of 14) were between 5 and 10 years of age. acyanotic congenital heart disease was known to preexist in 78.6% and rheumatic valvular heart disease in 21.4% of cases. organis...

BACKGROUND The long-term results of mitral valve replacement (MVR; n = 631) with a bileaflet mechanical prosthesis or a Carpentier-Edwards Perimount bioprosthesis were evaluated in Japanese patients of different age groups. METHODS A total of 507 bileaflet mechanical prostheses and 124 bioprostheses have been implanted since 1982 at our institution. Follow-up was completed for 6,598 patient-y...

Diagnosis, and Treatment of Infective Endocarditis of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Eur Heart J 2009;30:2369–413. [4] Grinda JM, Mainardi JL, D’Attellis N, Bricourt MO, Berrebi A, Fabiani JN et al. Cryopreserved aortic viable homograft for active aortic endocarditis. Ann Thorac Surg 2005;79:767–71. [5] Schafers HJ, Bierbach B, Aicher D. A new approach to the assessment of aortic cus...

Severe congenital aortic stenosis (CAS) often requires treatment in the early stages of life. Initial treatment is surgical commissurotomy or balloon valvuloplasty. Sometimes these approaches lead to aortic regurgitation. Once it occurs the only solution is valve replacement with mechanical prostheses or pulmonary autograft. Mechanical prostheses require anticoagulation and have a significant i...

Supplementary material (Videos 1 and 2) is available at EJCTS online. Video 1: Transoesophageal echocardiography showing a blockade of one of the leaflets of the mitral valve prosthesis due to a giant pannus formation with a resulting stenosis and insufficiency. Video 2: Fluoroscopy of aortic valve (top) and mitral valve (bottom) prostheses. There is an almost normal motion amplitude of one lea...

OBJECTIVE In children, mechanical mitral valve replacement may be the only option if the failing mitral valve cannot be repaired. Mandatory anticoagulation and the fixed size prosthesis are of concern in the growing child, but long-term follow-up results are lacking. METHODS Single centre, extended retrospective study of 54 patients who underwent first mitral valve replacement between June 19...