A lthough the incidence of mitral stenosis has declined precipitously in the Western world due to the reduced incidence of rheumatic heart disease, mitral regurgitation remains one of the most common valvular pathologies. Many patients affected by severe mitral valve disease are elderly with multiple comorbidities and are at high risk for traditional open surgical mitral valve repair or replace...

Four cases of acute dysfunction of Starr-Edwards mitral prostheses are recorded. The patients presented with sudden dyspnoea 4 to 18 months after apparently successful mitral valve replacement. The prosthetic valve dysfunction was caused by thrombus on the bare metal cage of the prosthesis. No warning thromboembolic phenomena had been recorded. Urgent replacement of the valve resulted in the su...

BACKGROUND Techniques to preserve the sub-valvular apparatus in order to reduce morbidity and mortality following mitral valve replacement have been frequently reported. However, it is uncertain what impact sub-valvular apparatus preservation techniques have on long-term outcomes following mitral valve replacement. This study investigated the effect of sub-valvular apparatus preservation on lon...

BACKGROUND Tricuspid regurgitation (TR) is common in patients with mitral valve disease; however, there are no straightforward, rapidly determinably criteria available for deciding whether TR repair should be performed during mitral valve replacement. The aim of our retrospective study was to identify a simple and fast criterion for determining whether TR repair should be performed in patients ...

BACKGROUND Mitral regurgitation is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular morbidity in pediatric patients with Marfan syndrome. The purpose of this study was to contribute to determining the appropriate surgical strategy for these patients. METHODS From January 1992 to May 2013, six patients with Marfan syndrome underwent surgery for mitral regurgitation in infancy or early childhood. ...

The patient is a 75-year-old man with a history significant for hypertension and congestive heart failure who underwent a bioprosthetic aortic valve replacement secondary to acute onset of aortic insufficiency. Cultures of the native valve were positive for Staphylococcus epidermidis sensitive to nafcillin and intravenous cefazolin was initiated. On postoperative day 24, he developed acute deco...

A critically ill patient had a major mitral paravalvular leak, failed device closure of the leak, and severe hemolytic anemia after a third mitral valve replacement. Echocardiography showed the Amplatzer occluder device completely displaced and swirled in the left atrial cavity. His condition was greatly improved after a fourth mitral valve replacement.

Seven patients with advanced mitral valve disease and systemic pulmonary hypertension subjected to mitral valve replacement without survival are presented here with the common denominator or the characteristic additional finding of aneurysmal dilatation of the pulmonary artery. During the same period 16 other patients with similar degree of valvular dysfunction and systemic pulmonary hypertensi...

Transcatheter aortic valve implantation and transcatheter mitral valve repair (MitraClip) procedures have been performed worldwide. In this paper, we review the use of two-dimensional and three-dimensional transesophageal echo for guiding transcatheter aortic valve replacement and mitral valve repair.