Outcomes after mechanical aortic valve replacement in children and young adults with congenital heart disease.

Objectives: There are little recent data on the outcomes of mechanical aortic valve replacement (AVR) in children and young adults with congenital aortic valve disease. We sought to review the survival and associated thromboembolic or bleeding complications after mechanical AVR at a single center.

Methods: Data were retrospectively collected for 121 patients undergoing prosthetic AVR from 2000 to 2014.

Hemorrhagic stroke in a child with low total serum cholesterol and a pulsatile left ventricular assist device.

Low serum cholesterol has long been associated with hemorrhagic stroke even though the mechanism for this association has yet to be elucidated. The association of low serum cholesterol with hemorrhagic stroke has been described thus far only in adult studies. There have been no reports of this association in children.