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 ...

OBJECTIVES The present study evaluates the long-term course of aortic valve disease and the need for aortic valve surgery in patients with rheumatic mitral valve disease who underwent mitral valve surgery. BACKGROUND Little is known about the natural history of aortic valve disease in patients undergoing mitral valve surgery for rheumatic mitral valve disease. In addition there is no firm pol...

The most common aortic valve congenital abnormality is observed in bicuspid aortic valve. Only a few cases of aortic valve quadricuspidy have been reported in the literature. We report a new case of endocarditis complicating a congenital quadricuspid aortic valve.

BACKGROUND The presence of a fourth aortic valve cusp (quadricupsid aortic valve) is a rare congenital malformation and is often accompanied by other anomalies of the adjacent cardiovascular structures. Among these concomitant anomalies, simultaneous association of both a single coronary ostium and aneurysmal ascending aortic dilation in combination with the quadricupsid aortic valve has not be...

Bicuspid aortic valve is the most prevalent cardiac valvular malformation. It is associated with a high rate of long-term morbidity including development of calcific aortic valve disease, aortic regurgitation and concomitant thoracic aortic aneurysm and dissection. Recently, basic and translational studies have identified some key processes involved in the development of bicuspid aortic valve a...

BACKGROUND There are no rigorously confirmed effective medical therapies for calcific aortic stenosis. Hypercholesterolemic Ldlr (-/-) Apob (100/100) mice develop calcific aortic stenosis and valvular cardiomyopathy in old age. Osteoprotegerin (OPG) modulates calcification in bone and blood vessels, but its effect on valve calcification and valve function is not known. OBJECTIVES To determine...

OBJECTIVE To compare the results of the root reconstruction with the aortic valve-sparing operation versus composite graft-valve replacement. METHODS From January 2002 to October 2013, 324 patients underwent aortic root reconstruction. They were 263 composite graft-valve replacement and 61 aortic valve-sparing operation (43 reimplantation and 18 remodeling). Twenty-six percent of the patients...

Concomitant aortic and mitral valve replacement or concomitant aortic valve replacement and mitral repair can be a challenge for the cardiac surgeon: in particular, because of their structure and design, two bioprosthetic heart valves or an aortic valve prosthesis and a rigid mitral ring can interfere at the level of the mitroaortic junction. Therefore, when a mitral bioprosthesis or a rigid mi...

Calcific aortic valve disease represents the predominant pathology of tricuspid (trileaflet) and bicuspid aortic valves in developed countries (Ladich et al., 2011). Accounting for approxi‐ mately half of anatomically isolated aortic stenosis and 25 percent of patients with aortic regurgitation (Roberts, 1970), calcific bicuspid aortic valves requiring surgical intervention present at least two...

osteogenesis imperfecta (oi) as an inherited connective tissue disorder can affect all tissues that contains type i collagen. well-known cardiac complications of this disease such as aortic root dilatation, aortic regurgitation and mitral valve prolapse have been rarely reported in the literature. coronary artery aneurysm is a rare cardiac complication in oi, as reported in a 19 year old female...