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Prosthetic valve malfunction masked by intraoperative pressure measurements
Kent H Rehfeldt1, Roger L Click
1Department of Anesthesiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota 55905, USA. rehfeldt.kent@mayo.edu
Anesthesia and Analgesia
|March 28, 2002
Abstract
Implications:
We describe a case in which intraoperative echocardiography recorded an abnormally high pressure gradient across a newly implanted mechanical heart valve. However, inserting pressure-transducing needles on each side of this prosthesis did not confirm the echocardiographic findings. The prosthesis was later confirmed to be malfunctioning and was replaced.