[10 years' experience of heart valve bioprostheses. Present status and future development].

Long-term results of mitral valve replacement with bioprostheses of three original designs are overviewed. Refinement of the supporting framework design, and of modelling and conservation methodologies has made it possible to improve the survival rates and provided for the absence of specific complications in two groups of patients. Experimental evidence allows for anticipating an increase in the terms of bioprostheses performance.

[Characteristics of the epidemic process in pyoseptic infections in a heart surgery hospital].

The authors conducted an epidemiologic analysis of hospital pyoseptic infections on the basis of study of the outcomes of 1,517 operations on the heart and the results of bacteriologic tests. A high frequency of secondary infectious endocarditis in acquired heart diseases was revealed, which allows operations in this group of patients to be related to the category of "conventionally clean" and shows that the proper antiseptic regimen must be organized during the operation without fail. The valves of the heart in 59.