Sir, Despite advances in prosthetic valve design, patients who undergo valve replacement are at risk of arterial thromboembolism and valve thrombosis. We present four cases where new antiplatelet agents have been used. A 61-year-old man with aortic valve endocarditis underwent early mechanical valve replacement. He developed mitral regurgitation and an aorticright-atrial fistula requiring surgi...

Activity of total lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and that of the heat-stable isozyme (LDH-1) was measured by the method of Strandjord and Clayson in the serum of 62 cardiac patients with congenital and valvular heart disease before and after cardiac catheterization and at follow-up examination after cardiac surgery. A universal elevation of both total and heat-stable LDH was found in patients with...

Introduction Late complications such as hemolysis and thrombus formation in patients with an implanted prosthetic heart valve have been related to fluid dynamic characteristics [ 11. Specific blood flow patterns such as flow reversal and vortex flow have been considered to contribute to thrombus formation [2]. In order to detect alterations of flow fields around prostheses in humans MR velocity...

SUMMARY Forty-nine patients whose clinical symptoms suggested a leaking cardiac prosthetic valve were studied by both cineradiography and angiocardiography. We found a wider range of tilting motion of the nonleaking mitral valve than has been previously shown. An angle of tilt greater than 60 for the prosthetic aortic valve strongly suggests separation of the prosthesis from its bed with a para...

Echocardiography and fluoroscopy are the main techniques for prosthetic heart valve (PHV) evaluation, but because of specific limitations they may not identify the morphological substrate or the extent of PHV pathology. Cardiac computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have emerged as new potential imaging modalities for valve prostheses. We present an overview of the possib...

BACKGROUND The problem of prosthetic heart valve selection in fertile women with acquired heart defects remains crucial in modern cardiology. Mechanical heart valves require lifelong indirect anticoagulant therapy, which has significant fetal toxicity and is unacceptable for women planning pregnancy. Bioprosthetic heart valves are the best choice for fertile women; however, their durability is ...

Since most complications related to operation of prosthetic heart valves are due to disturbances of flow, its hydrodynamic characterization is a useful aid in the design of new prostheses. Besides durability and biological response to implant, these prostheses should provide a favorable hemodynamic profile, considering that there is a great clinical interest focused on the haemolysis of blood. ...

The purpose of this European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) Survey was to assess the perceptions of 'valvular' atrial fibrillation (AF) and management of AF patients with various heart valve abnormalities in daily clinical practice in European electrophysiology (EP) centres. Questionnaire survey was sent via the Internet to the EHRA-EP Research Network Centres. Of the 52 responding centres, 42...