Respiratory tract obstruction due to a blood clot may result in life threatening ventilatory impairment. Ball valve blood clot obstructions of the airways are rare. A ball valve blood clot acts as a one-way valve, allowing (near) normal air entry into the airways, but (completely) blocking expiration. In a near fatal case of obstruction of the airways by a ball valve blood clot, we performed 'w...

OBJECTIVES Prosthetic heart valve obstruction (PHVO) is a potentially fatal complication of heart valve replacement with mechanical substitute mainly due to thrombosis. The purpose of this report is to present a single-center experience of 136 consecutive patients operated on between 1978 and 2001. METHODS The diagnosis of PHVO was mainly assessed by fluoroscopy and/or echocardiography. Throm...

Introduction: Rheumatic heart disease still remains one of the leading causes of congestive heart failure and death owing to valvular pathologies, in developing countries. Valve replacement still remains the treatment of choice in such patients.The aim of this study wasto analyze the postoperative outcome of  double valve replacement (Mitral and Aortic ) in patients of rheumatic heart disease. ...

The first artificial heart valves to be used clinically were mechanical devices and the continuous research and development over the last 25 years led to the modern prostheses which offer simplicity and safety of implantation, haemodynamic efficiency, lower rates of thromboembolism and excellent durability. After the old Starr-Edwards ball-and-cage valve and the Björk-Shiley tilting-disk valve,...

A 26-year-old man was admitted for follow-up after VSD closure without any symptoms. Echocardiography showed a mobile mass of the tricuspid valve (Fig. 1). The peduncu-lated ball-shaped mass was attached to the anterior leaflet of the tricuspid valve (Fig. 2). Histopathological examination revealed an organized thrombus without any tumor components. Fig. 1. Preoperative transthoracic echocardio...

St. Jude Medical (SJM) bileaflet mechanical valves were approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1977. The SJM valve design consists of two semicircular leaflets which pivot on hinges. Compared to other mechanical heart valve prostheses such as ball and cage and tilting disk prosthetic valves, it provides good central flow, the leaflets open completely, and the pressure drop across the v...

PURPOSE The Starr-Edwards ball valve was first applied clinically in 1960. In our hospital, this valve has been used since 1963, and some patients have been followed up for 30 years or more. Based on our experience, therapeutic strategies included revalve replacement as a preventive procedure in the absence of valve-related complications. In this study, we investigated whether prophylactic reop...

The study on the flow behave inside of a ball valve is important for heavy crude oil transportation. Owe to the fast progress of the numerical technique, it becomes an effective way to observe the flows inside a valve and to analyze the flow structure of the oil-water core annular flow. In the present study, the simulation of the oil-water core annular flowing through the valve is conducted...

We report a case of a male patient who received an implantation of a Starr-Edwards-caged-ball-valve-prosthesis in 1967. The surgery and postoperative course were without complications and the patient recovered well after the operation. For the next four decades, the patient remained asymptomatic--no restrictions on his lifestyle and without any complications. In 2006, 39 years after the initial...