title: Aortic valve replacement in patients over 70 years.
abstract: Twenty-seven patients 70 years of age or more were operated upon with aortic valvular replacement with an early mortality rate of 7%. No more patients died during a mean follow-up period of 28 months. The Björk-Shiley standard tilting disc valve was implanted in 15 cases and the new convexo-concave model in 12 cases. Sixty-seven per cent of the patients had narrow aortic roots (21 and 23 mm prosthesis diameters) compared with 40% of younger patients. Thrombo-embolic complications occurred in 2 patients who had not received anticoagulant treatment. No such complications were recorded in the remaining 23 surviving patients treated with anticoagulants. All the surviving patients (except one who was re-operated because of a thrombotic encapsulation of the disc) were markedly improved postoperatively. High age alone is no longer an absolute contra-indication for aortic valve replacement. The convexo-concave Björk-Shiley tilting disc prosthesis is suitable in these patients because of its low resistance of flow at small diameters. The importance of anticoagulant treatment even in elderly patients is emphasized.
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001021:Aortic Valve / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006350:Heart Valve Prosthesis; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011183:Postoperative Complications; D013923:Thromboembolism / Q000209:etiology