A 76-year old female, was admitted in our cardiac surgery clinic to perform surgical aortic valve replacement due to a severe aortic regurgitation with symptoms of congestive heart failure. Her past medical history included moderately impaired renal function (GFR 48 mL/min) and arterial hypertension.  The thoracic-CT scan revealed a serious calcification of the entire thoracic aorta (Figure 1)...

Pericardial bioprosthetic heart valves were introduced into clinical practice more than 30 years ago (1). Unfortunately, the long-term results were initially disappointing, particularly with regard to the limited durability of the prosthesis (2,3). Clinical use of the Carpentier-Edwards pericardial (CEp) valve started in 1981, and a variety of new techniques of valve construction and anti-calci...

Long-term clinical and laboratory findings in three children who required mitral valve replacement below age four years are reported. In each instance a second valve replacement was necessary approximately 8 1/2 years after the initial one, following a two and one-half fold increase in body weight. Inadequate mitral valve orifice size was found in each instance, producing a hemodynamic picture ...

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 ...

1. Artificial heart valves have been in use for over five decades to replace diseased heart valves. Since the first heart valve replacement performed with a caged-ball valve, more than 50 valve designs have been developed, differing principally in valve geometry, number of leaflets and material. To date, all artificial heart valves are plagued with complications associated with haemolysis, coag...

A 90 year-old male patient, known to have severe aortic stenosis (AS), was admitted with chest pain, shortness of breath and swelling of both lower limbs. He had history of ischemic heart disease and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) of left anterior descending artery (LAD) in 2002. He also had long standing hypertension, primary hypothyroidism and hypercalcemia. He had a permanent pacem...

Objective: Evaluate the efficacy of the extended vertical transseptal approach in mitral valve reoperation with a small left atrium. Method: From January 2001 to December 2002, 15 patients with previous mitral operation, small left atrium and atrial fibrillation underwent mitral valve surgery through an extended vertical transseptal incision. There were nine women and six men. Their ages ranged...

Current artificial heart valves either have limited lifespan or require the recipient to be on permanent anticoagulation therapy. In this paper, effort is made to assess a newly developed bileaflet valve prosthesis made of synthetic flexible leaflet materials, whose geometry and material properties are based on those of the native mitral valve, with a view to providing superior options for mitr...