A Case of Reoperation for a Starr-Edwards Ball Valve Prosthesis Implanted in the Aortic
Position 29 Years Previously
Yuji Sugawara
Taijiro Sueda
Kazumasa Orihashi
Masanobu Watari
Kenji Okada
Osamu Ishii
Yuichiro Matsuura
(First Department of Surgery, Hiroshima University, School of Medicine, Hiroshima, Japan)
A 53-year-old woman had dyspnea on effort since half a year previously and was categorized as
NYHA II. She had suffered from chronic atrial fibrillation (AF) for three years. She had
undergone aortic valve replacement using a Starr-Edwards ball valve (SEV) for aortic regurgitation
and mitral commissurotomy for mitral stenosis 29 years previously. Echocardiography
revealed mitral stenosis with an orifice area of 0.9 cm2 and neither dysfunction of the SEV nor abnormal findings on the valve itself. She underwent mitral valve replacement and left atrial maze procedure for AF. Because of the intraoperative findings of the cloth wear-covered SEV cage, redo aortic valve replacement was performed simultaneously. St. jude Medical valves were used for valve prostheses. There was no complication and the ECG returned to sinus rhythm postoperatively. These has been no report of a patient with such a long period between SEV implantation and replacement in Japan. This experience made us realize again the importance of attention to the cloth wear covered cage during long term follow up for SEV.
Jpn. J. Cardiovasc. Surg. 29: 407-409（2000)
