Acute Severe Mitral Regurgitation During First Attacks of Rheumatic Fever: Clinical Spectrum, Mechanisms and Prognostic Factors
Joél Kamblock, Lam N’Guyen, Bruno Pagis, Philippe Costes, Christophe Le Goanvic, Philippe Lionet, Benoit Maheu, Gérard Papouin

Geometric Deformity of the Mitral Annulus in Patients With Ischemic Mitral Regurgitation: A Real-time Three-Dimensional Echocardiographic Study
Nozomi Watanabe MD, Yasuo Ogasawara PhD, Yasuko Yamaura MD, Takahiro Kawamoto MD, Takashi Akasaka MD, Kiyoshi Yoshida MD

Effects of Percutaneous Balloon Mitral Valvuloplasty on Plasma B-type Natriuretic Peptide in Rheumatic Mitral Stenosis Patients With and Without Atrial Fibrillation
Yunpeng P. Shang MD, Lei Lai MSc, Junzhu Chen MD, Furong Zhang MD, Xingxiang Wang MD

An Experimental Method for the Percutaneous Induction of a Posterolateral Infarct and Functional Ischemic Mitral Regurgitation
Thomas M. Joudinaud MD, Corrine L. Kegel BS, Alan A. Gabster MD, Mark L. Sanz MD, Alistair MacDonald MD, Dan Propp MD, Edward Callaghan MD, Patricia A. Weber DrPH, Ulrik Hvass MD, Carlos M. G. Duran MD

Influence of Two Different Reporting Systems on Counts of Thromboembolic and Bleeding Complications after St. Jude Medical Valve Replacement: Results from the German Experience with Low-Intensity Anticoagulation (GELIA) Study
Detlef Hering MD, Cornelia Piper MD, Rito Bergemann MD, Carina Hillenbach PhD, Dieter Horstkotte MD

EDITORIAL: Point-of-Care Devices to Improve Long-term Prognosis after Valve Replacement
Dieter Horstkotte MD

Initial Clinical Experience with a Hand-held Device (Thrombocheck©) for the Detection of Bileaflet Prosthetic Valve Malfunction
S. Ben Zekry MD, A. Sagie MD, I. Ben-Dor MD, D. A. Weisenberg MD, H. Nukrian ARDS, A. Battler MD, Y. Shapira MD

Pregnancy Has No Effect on the Rate of Structural Deterioration of Bioprosthetic Valves: Long-term 18-year Follow Up Results
Fayez El Shaer MD, Walid Hassan MD, Bendehiba Latroche MD, Sumaya Helaly MD, Hesham Hegazy MD, Maie Shahid MD, Gamal Mohamed PhD, Zohair Al-Halees MD

Seventeen-Year Experience with the St. Jude Medical Biocor Porcine Bioprosthesis
Pia S. Mykén MD

Biological Versus Mechanical Aortic Prosthesis? A Nineteen-year Comparison in a Propensity-matched Population
Tomaso Bottio MD, Giulio Rizzoli MD, Luca Caprili MD, Luca Testolin MD, Gaetano Thiene MD, Gino Gerosa MD

Performance of Bioprostheses and Mechanical Prostheses in Age Group 61-70 Years
Kriengchai Prasongsukarn MD, W. R. Eric Jamieson MD, Samuel V. Lichtenstein MD

Up to Nine-Years’ Experience with the Allcarbon Prosthetic Heart Valve
Tri H. Q. Ho MD, Phan Van Nguyen MD, Phuong K. Phan MD, Vinh N. Pham MD

Prosthetic Valve Hemodynamics Assessed by the Left Ventricular Outflow Tract Area Utilization Index: A Randomized Study of the CarboMedics Reduced versus the Medtronic-Hall Valve
Rune Wiseth MD, Rune Haaverstad MD, Nicola Vitale MD, Asbjoern Karevold MD

Stentless Bioprostheses in Small Aortic Roots: Impact of Patient-Prosthesis Mismatch on Survival and Quality of Life
Jürgen Ennker MD, Ulrich Rosendahl MD, Alexander Albert MD, Ercan Dumlu, Ina Carolin Ennker MD, Ines Florath PhD

Mortality after Cardiac Surgery with or without Microwave Ablation in Patients with Permanent Atrial Fibrillation
Michael Knaut MD, Sems M. Tugtekin MD, Stefan Spitzer MD, Friedrich Jung PhD, Klaus Matschke MD

Diamine-extended Glutaraldehyde- and Carbodiimide Crosslinks Act Synergistically in Mitigating Bioprosthetic Aortic Wall Calcification
Peter Zilla MD, Deon Bezuidenhout PhD, Mark Torrianni MS, Marc Hendriks PhD, Paul Human PhD

An Experimental Approach to Reversible ‘Endovascular Aortic Valve Placement’
Jan Spillner MD, Jochen Börgermann MD, Gerrit Reppenhagen MD, Lu Er-Xiong MD, Jürgen Christoph Reidemeister MD, Ivar Friedrich MD

Acoustic and Visual Characteristics of Cavitation Induced by Mechanical Heart Valves
Kwanghyun Sohn MS, Keefe B. Manning PhD, Arnold A. Fontaine PhD, John M. Tarbell PhD, Steven Deutsch PhD

Twenty-Eight-Year Survival of Stent-Mounted Aortic Homograft in the Mitral Position: Case Report
Ganapathy Subramaniam MS, Ujjwal K. Chowdhury MCh, Sandeep Seth DM, Somnath Prusty MCh, A. Sampath Kumar MCh

Mitral Stenosis after Mitral Valve Repair Using the Duran Flexible Annuloplasty Ring for Degenerative Mitral Regurgitation
Hirofumi Nishida MD, Yoshiharu Takahara MD, Shigeyasu Takeuchi MD, Kenji Mogi MD

The Arantius Nodule: A ‘Stress-decreasing Effect’
In response to
Lim KH, Candra J, Yeo JH, Duran CM. Flat or curved pericardial aortic valve cusps: A finite element study. J Heart Valve Dis 2004;13: 792-797
Mathias H. Aazami MD, Mehrdad Salehi MD