Thromboembolic and hemorrhagic complications in patients with prosthetic heart valves cared for in a tertiary care center. What have we learned?

Background: Heart valve replacement surgery with mechanical or biological prostheses entails a risk of thromboembolism and bleeding complications.

Objective: To determine the complications related to complementary anticoagulation therapy and the probability of risk.

Methods: One-hundred and sixty-three patients who underwent heart valve replacement between 2002 and 2016 with either mechanical or biological prostheses, and who received vitamin K antagonists after hospital discharge, were studied.

[Diagnosis of perioperative myocardial infarction within the first seventy-two hours after cardiac surgery].

Unlabelled: One of the most frequent complications of cardiac surgery is the perioperative myocardial infarction (PMI). Incidence of PMI shows a wide variation because an accurate detection of this complication is difficult in the early postoperative stage. The objectives of the present study were to determine in our population of patients the incidence of PMI during the first seventy two hours after cardiac surgery as well as associations among the accepted criteria to diagnose this complication.