Abnormalities in the silastic poppets of cardiac valve prostheses have been detected with increasing frequency. Ball variance can cause serious mechanical dysfunction of the prosthesis and can result in sudden death. Contour sound spectrograms were recorded on 12 patients with ball variance confirmed by operation and 25 controls. In ball variance the frequency of the aortic opening sound at the...

W E HAVE OBSERVED three patients' who had developed severe hemolytic anemia following aortic valve replacement with a Starr-Edwards ball valve.2 3 The anemia has persisted from 3 to 6 months following operation. Hemolytic anemia following repair of ostium primum defect with a Teflon patch with a regurgitant jet through the mitral cleft has been described.4-7 Hemolytic anemia following insertion...

PURPOSE To identify optimum international normalized ratio (INR) levels and required warfarin doses and anticoagulation-related complications in patients following mechanical prosthetic valve replacement. MATERIALS AND METHODS Five hundred and seven patients were prospectively followed up for 10 years (2008.5 patient-years). Anticoagulation-related complications were classified into hemorrhag...

A 59-year-old male who had undergone aortic and mitral valve replacement with Starr-Edwards ball valves 27 years ago was admitted to our hospital for hemolytic anemia and heart failure. Echocardiography revealed prosthetic valve failure with a high-pressure gradient and small effective orifice area. The Starr-Edwards ball valves were successfully replaced with bileaflet mechanical valves. The e...

With the advent of modern cardiac surgery the clinical diagnosis of intramural thrombi, ball valve thrombi and myxomatous and other tumors in the left atrium has assumed great importance. It is shown here that a diagnosis of thrombosis within the left atrium is possible by angiocardiography. The angiocardiographic features of mural and ball valve thrombi of the left atrium and of left auricular...

P OSTIMPLANTATION ALTERATION of the physicochemical properties of the silastic poppet ( ball variance ) has been reported in some patients with aortic ball valve prostheses.12 Clinical recognition of this situation is difficult, and the diagnosis is usually made at autopsy. This report concerns a patient with ball variance manifested primarily by traumatic intravascular hemolysis and hemoglobin...

introduction: a rare case of basaloid squamous cell carcinoma (bscc) of the larynx, which has not been previously reported, is described. case report: a 60-year-old man was presented to the otolaryngology department with progressive dyspnoea and dysphagia to solids for over a period of 1 week. direct laryngoscopy revealed a tumour at the laryngeal aspect of the epiglottis, which prolapsed into ...

Some prosthetic heart valves with Silastic ball poppets undergo degeneration and variance. The problem is avoided with metal poppets; however, their impact can damage the cloth coverings on the struts, resulting in distorted blood flow paths. Consequently, renewed interest in mOd-cured Silastic poppets and inserts is developing. With photostress equipment, we analyzed two spherical poppet model...

A mitral Starr-Edwards ball valve has, in three patients with concomitant aortic incompetence, permitted recognition of intermittent premature valve closure by auscultation and this has been documented by phonocardiograms. In two instances the observations were confirmed during cardiac catheterization. The features of premature Starr valve closure are described and the mechanism is discussed.