The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Vol 75, 595-598, Copyright © 1978 by The American Association for Thoracic Surgery and The Western Thoracic Surgical Association
Hemodynamic assessment of Lillehei-Kaster tilting disc aortic and mitral prostheses
R Forman, BJ Gersh, R Fraser and W Beck
Twenty-six patients with Lillehei-Kaster prosthetic heart valves, 15 with
aortic and 11 with mitral valves, were catheterized to assess their
hemodynamic performance. The calculated effective orifice areas were
linearly related to but always less than their actual orifice areas. There
was no significant difference in the effective orifice area of the mitral
or aortic prostheses of similar size. The aortic prosthesis with an annulus
diameter of 21 mm. was found to have a mean effective orifice area of 0.77
sq. cm. Our catheter studies have demonstrated no hemodynamic advantages of
the Lillehei-Kaster aortic and mitral prosthetic valves over prosthetic
valves.