The first artificial heart valves to be used clinically were mechanical devices and the continuous research and development over the last 25 years led to the modern prostheses which offer simplicity and safety of implantation, haemodynamic efficiency, lower rates of thromboembolism and excellent durability. After the old Starr-Edwards ball-and-cage valve and the Björk-Shiley tilting-disk valve,...

This case report describes a percutaneous aortic valve implantation with the Medtronic CoreValve selfexpanding valve prosthesis in a patient with severe aortic stenosis. The approach was made via the left subclavian artery because of the lack of femoral vessel access. The patient was a 78-year-old female with breathlessness on minimal effort, a recent hospitalisation due to pulmonary oedema, an...

BACKGROUND The Medtronic Evolut R (EVR) is a novel transcatheter heart valve designed to allow precise implantation at the intended position and to minimize prosthesis dysfunction as well as procedural complications. Our aim was to compare short-term functional and clinical outcomes of the new EVR with the established Medtronic CoreValve (CV) system. METHODS AND RESULTS Of 151 patients underg...

A 56-year-old woman was urgently admitted following an episode of syncope. Fourteen years earlier, she had undergone implantation of a tricuspid prosthesis due to Ebstein anomaly, with congestive heart failure (NYHA class III) and severe tricuspid regurgitation. A mechanical prosthesis had been selected (31-mm Medtronic-Hall® valve; Medtronic Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) because of its st...

P rosthetic valve obstruction is a condition associated with significant morbidity and mortality. 1 The most common causes of obstruction include valve thrombosis or pannus formation. Thrombosis is more likely to occur early after valve implantation, in the setting of inadequate anticoagulation, and is more common in mechanical prostheses. 2,3 However, it can occur with bioprostheses and may de...

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...

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES To evaluate the predictive value of CT-derived measurements of the aortic annulus for prosthesis sizing in transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and to calculate optimal cutoff values for the selection of various prosthesis sizes. METHODS The local IRB waived approval for this single-center retrospective analysis. Of 441 consecutive TAVI-patients, 90 were exclud...

Aortic stenosis is one of the more commonly encountered disease processes in valvular heart disease, affecting over 300,000 people worldwide. Surgical replacement of the aortic valve has been the mainstay of therapy for decades; however, in certain patients with prohibitively high-risk comorbidities, surgery is not a viable option. The advent of transcatheter aortic valve replacement has come t...

Suture technique for valve replacement surgery has often focused on decreasing the soft tissue injury that leads to pseudoaneurysm formation and associated latent infection. There is universal recognition that precise suture placement is essential for avoiding adverse sequelae while allowing flexibility during the implantation of the prosthesis. The use of a continuous chain of linked horizonta...

Reoperation is the method of choice for correcting prosthetic paravalvular leaks. The percutaneous repair of mitral paravalvular leaks might represent an interesting alternative in select cases. The present study reports two cases of mitral paravalvular leaks that were treated with AmplatzerTM Vascular Plug III guided by three-dimensional (3D) transesophageal echocardiography, using the percuta...