The suprasternal approach to recording aortic valve prostheses: a comparison with the precordial and subxiphoid...

We evaluated 56 consecutive patients echocardiographically 9 days to 104 months after aortic valve replacement by the precordial, subxiphoid and suprasternal approach. In 11 patients, the mitral valve had also been replaced. For comparison, a subjective grading system (score 1 up to 3) was applied to the records obtained from each approach. Disc valves (n = 41) were equally scored from the precordial and suprasternal approach (score 2.6). Ball prostheses (n = 6) were best imaged from the suprasternal approach (score 3.0), whereas bioprostheses (n = 9) were best visualized from the precordial (1.8). Simultaneous imaging of both valves was possible in 6 out of 11 patients with a double prosthesis using the suprasternal approach but not from precordial and subxiphoid approaches. Six patients presented prosthetic valve dysfunction. Five patients had paravalvular insufficiency; 4 of these patients had a Björk-Shiley valve and one patient a Lillehei-Kaster valve. The echograms of 4 out of 5 patients with a paravalvular leak were normal from each approach. In another patient an obstructed Björk-Shiley prosthesis was found. The pre- and postoperative echograms demonstrated that the suprasternal approach was best to visualize the obstructed valve. The study shows that the suprasternal technique is superior for evaluation of most patients with aortic valve prostheses.