Clinical Investigations Sorin St. Jude Medical and CarboMedics Aortic Bileaflet Valves: An Echocardiographic Comprison

Hemodynamic function of 23 mm sorine bileaflet aortic heart valve and matching size of St. Jude Medical and CarboMedics valves have been evaluated in 30 patients-10 patients for each valve- with transthoracic and transesophageal color Doppler echocardiography. Mean body surface area of the patients was 1.71±1.1 m2. Non-paired single-tailed Student's t-test has been applied for statistical analysis. There were no significant differences between the mean aortic gradients of the three valves, namely 11.2±0.9, 11.5±3.3 and 12.1±0.3 mmHg in sorine, St. Jude Medical and CarboMedics valves, respectively. Comparison of the effective orifice areas of the three valves showed no significant difference (t=1.83, p>0.005). Mild aortic regurgitation was detected in all patients, though in none of the cases was this clinically significant. We conclude that sorine bileaflet aortic heart valve has an acceptable hemodynamic function comparable to the St. Jude Medical and CarboMedics bileaflet aortic valves.