BACKGROUND Despite the established superiority of mitral repair over replacement, its adoption in the treatment of elderly patients has not been uniform, partly because of a lack of robust long-term survival data. We present the long-term survival of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries undergoing mitral valve repair and replacement over a 10-year period. METHODS AND RESULTS We used the Med...

OBJECTIVE Although mitral valve replacement is frequently performed in patients of all age groups, there are few studies available which determine the causes of operative mortality in mitral valve replacement especially in our region. Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify factors that are significantly associated with operative mortality in mitral valve replacement. METHODS F...

While prosthetic valves are acceptable in the subcoronary position, their use for mitral or tricuspid replacement is less satisfactory. Introduced by Ross in I962, aortic homografts for aortic valve replacement have found a definite place in the modem surgical armamentarium and have paved the way towards heart valve grafting. Naturally, for an improved mitral valve substitute, attention was dir...

Transcatheter valve implantation is a novel interventional technique, which was developed as an  alternative therapy for surgical aortic valve replacement in inoperable patients with severe aortic stenosis. Despite limited experience in using transcatheter valve implantation for mitral and aortic regurgitation, transapical transcatheter aortic valve implantation and valve-in-valve implantation ...

Background. Mitral valve replacement can be very difficult to obtain in infants because the valve annulus diameter can be smaller than the available prosthesis. Case Report. We describe the case of a 2-month-old female weighing 3.5 kg affected by mitral valve dysplasia leading to severe valve stenosis. Despite full medication, the clinical conditions were critical and surgery was undertaken. Th...

Background: Valve-in-Valve (VIV) Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) is now the treatment of choice in high-surgical-risk patients with failing aortic bioprosthesis. Although less performed, VIV-Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement (TMVR) is a valid treatment option for selected high-risk patients with degenerated mitral bioprostheses. Several cases of elective ViVTAVR and -TMVR hav...

Secondary mitral regurgitation (MR) is more frequent, portends a worse prognosis and its diagnostic and management are more difficult in comparison with primary MR. The mechanism of secondary MR is linked to the left ventricle remodeling, while the valve morphology is normal. Surgical treatment of severe secondary MR consists either in mitral valve replacement or in mitral valve repair. The mos...

Fifty consecutive patients, 25 undergoing aortic valve replacement and 25 mitral valve replacement, were studied by serial electrocardiography, preoperative and postoperative technetium-99m pyrophosphate radionuclide scanning, and serial measurement of enzymes (creatine kinase, aspartate aminotransferase, urea stable lactic dehydrogenase) and the MB isoenzyme of creatine kinase to define the in...

A 60-year-old man underwent aortic valve replacement with a bileaflet mechanical valve for aortic regurgitation and mitral valve repair using a prosthetic ring for mitral regurgitation (MR). Intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) confirmed no residual MR and a normally functioning aortic prosthetic valve without a paravalvular leak. One week after the operation, transthoracic ech...