background: the evaluation of prosthetic valves is very difficult with two-dimensional transthoracic echocardiography alone. doppler and color flow imaging as well as transesophageal echocardiography are more reliable to detect prosthetic valve dysfunction. however, doppler study sometimes tends to be misleading due to the load-depending characteristics of peak and mean pressure gradients. the ...

Catheter radiofrequency ablation of the atrial fibrillation substrate may be difficult in patients after open heart surgery. Difficulties arise presence a mitral valve prosthesis, arrhythmias several morphologies (more often left atypical flutter), including incisional ones. These cases require thorough and scrupulous approach to achieve complete isolation all available arrhythmia substrates. A...

BACKGROUND Valvar heart disease is an important public health problem, more common in developing countries, especially in younger. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the epidemiological features of patients and its influence on the prosthesis type choice used on patients who underwent valve surgery. METHODS Cross-sectional. Data such as age, sex, provenance, surgery procedure and prosthesis type were re...

Paravalvular aortic regurgitation (PAR) negatively affects the prognosis after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) with dramatically increased morbidity and mortality in patients with more than mild PAR. Because transcatheter heart valves are implanted in a sutureless fashion using oversizing to anchor the prosthesis stent frame at the level of the virtual aortic annulus, stent frame ...

BACKGROUND Advances in surgical technique, prosthetic heart valve design, and anticoagulation have contributed to an overall improvement in morbidity and mortality in women with heart valve prostheses as well as increased feasibility of pregnancy. Previous work investigating the pregnancies of women with prosthetic valves has been directed largely toward understanding the influence of anticoagu...

In patients with prosthetic heart valves non-cardiac surgery may require temporary discontinuation of oral anticoagulation. Although the risk of valve related thromboembolic complications may generally be only slightly increased during the short perioperative period, in the presence of certain risk factors, replacement of oral anticoagulation with heparin is recommended. In the presented patien...

OBJECTIVES To describe the early and late outcomes of carcinoid patients undergoing surgical heart valve replacement. METHODS In a retrospective study, records of patients with symptomatic carcinoid heart disease referred for valve surgery between 1993 and 2010 at two academic centres were reviewed. The perioperative and postoperative outcomes were analysed. RESULTS Nineteen patients, with ...

Introduction: Surgical procedures, especially total laryngectomy, have a profound adverse effect on the patient's physical, functional, as well as emotional health, and strongly decrease quality of life. Tracheoesophageal puncture is one of the most significant method that is widely performed successfully by physicians. Current valve technology enables long expiring duration; however, gen...