Combined mitral and aortic valve replacement with Bjørk-Shiley prostheses: long term survival and valve-related complications

Between 1974 and 1985, combined aortic and mitral valve replacement (DVR) was performed in 209 patients using Bjørk-Shiley tilting-disc prostheses. Early and late mortality were 9.5% and 10.5% respectively for the entire series. Factors significantly influencing early mortality were: Emergency DVR, preoperative NYHA Class IV, double valve, critical stenosis, and small aortic replacement prostheses. The effect of the latter was augmented by the suboptimal orientation of the implanted prostheses. The overall survival was 74 +/- 4.4% at 12 years; but was only 40 +/- 6.1% at 8 years in patients who were in NYHA class IV preoperatively. Intermittent disc occlusion (DO) and thrombotic disc occlusion (TO), presented as early, anticoagulant related haemorrhage (AH) and prosthetic valve endocarditis (ENDO) as sporadic, and thromboembolism (TE) and paravalvular leak (PVL) as continuous risk factors. Freedom from all known valve-related complications was 77 +/- 4.5% at 12 years (DO, TO, AH, ENDO, TE, PVL: 98%, 97%, 96%, 96%, 88% and 89% respectively). Lethal DO and TO occurred in mitral prostheses. Freedom from reoperation was 95% at 5 and 12 years. Patient-related valve failure rate in this series is comparable with the other series which used mechanical prostheses and is lower than those which used bioprostheses.