[Pregnancy in patients with heart valve prosthesis. A French retrospective cooperative study (155 cases)]

A French cooperative study of 155 pregnancies in 103 women with valvular prosthesis (95 mechanical, 60 bioprostheses including 27 bivalvular prostheses) is reported. Therefore, a total of 182 prostheses (108 mechanical and 74 bioprostheses) were exposed to the risk of pregnancy. The maternal outcome in the group of 108 mechanical prostheses was complicated by 16 thromboembolic events (TE) including 10 prosthetic valve thromboses which required emergency valve replacement in 4 cases, 6 systemic TE in 13 mitral, 2 aortic and 1 pulmonary mechanical prostheses. The TE were four times more frequent in patients on heparin than in those on oral anticoagulants. There were 4 deaths, 3 among the 10 prosthetic valve thromboses (one reoperation, two sudden deaths). Seven of the 74 bioprostheses were reoperated for degeneration on average 5.9 years after the initial operation but there were no deaths or TE. The outcome of pregnancy was 99 children (63%), 49 of which were born to mothers with mechanical prostheses (53%) and 50 to mothers with bioprostheses (80%) (p < 0.001). Seven of the children were born prematurely, all mothers being on anticoagulant therapy. The birth weight was over 400 grams heavier (3 kg versus 2.6 kg) in the bioprosthesis group (p < 0.05). The 20 spontaneous abortions (13%) were more common in patients on anticoagulants (17%) than in those without (2%) (p < 0.02). Congenital defects due to oral anticoagulants were rare (one certain case). There was one case of phocomelia, an abnormality which has never been described in this context. The 36 remaining pregnancies were still deaths (N = 5), abortion due to maternal death (N = 4), maternal complications (N = 8), therapeutic (N = 9) or voluntary abortions (N = 10) (28 mechanical and 8 bioprostheses).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)