Background and Objective: There has been concerns regarding the safety of Warfarin in pregnant females due to its teratogenic potential. At the same time warfarin provides best anticoagulation in patients with prosthetic valves. Various dosage regimes have been tried to strike a balance between safety of mother and the avoidance of congenital anomalies in the newborn. This study was conducted to observe the effect of Warfarin in pregnant mothers taking different doses of warfarin, and their neonatal outcome, in our outdoor patients. Methods: This is a cross sectional observational study conducted at the Faisalabad Institute of Cardiology. The pregnant mothers taking warfarin for prosthetic valve replacement who presented to our specialized clinic between November 2016 to April 2017 were included in the study. These included a total of 75 females between the age of 20-35 years. To compare the dose related effect of warfarin, two groups of the patients were formed. One group comprised of patients taking warfarin ≤5mg while the other group consisted of those who were taking >5mg of warfarin daily. These patients were followed till their delivery. The information was collected about the maternal and fetal outcomes. The maternal outcomes including mode of delivery/miscarriage, peripartum bleeding and any valve related thromboembolic complications. The fetal outcomes included birth weight, maturity, embryopathy and congenital anomaly in the baby. Results: Patient’s mean age was 29.25±3.75 years. The mitral valve replacement was present in 60% patients (n=45) while 25.3% patients (n=19) had aortic valve replacement and 14.7% patients (n=11) had double valve replacement. In this group 30 patients (40%) had taken <5 mg warfarin and 45 patients (60%) had received >5 mg warfarin medicine. Miscarriages, cesarean sections, low birth weight and prematurity were more common in patients receiving warfarin >5 mg with p-values 0.005, 0.046, 0.01 and 0.033 respectively. No case of fetal embryopathy was found in both groups. Conclusion: No case of embryopathy was found in each group which signifies that warfarin in lower doses is safe anticoagulant in patients with prosthetic valve replacements. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.4.3924 How to cite this:Nadeem S, Khilji SA, Ali F, Jalal A. Continued use of Warfarin in lower dose has safe maternal and neonatal outcomes in pregnant women with Prosthetic Heart Valves. Pak J Med Sci. 2021;37(4):---------. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.4.3924 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Objective: To determine the role of preoperative administration of sildenafil on pulmonary hypertension in patients with mitral valve disease undergoing mitral valve replacement surgery. Study Design: Randomized Control Trial. Setting: Department of Cardiac Surgery, Faisalabad Institute of Cardiology, Faisalabad. Period: June 2018 to June 2020. Material & Methods: A total of 310 patients with mitral valve disease who underwent mitral valve replacement were included. The patients were divided into a control group of 155, who were not administered oral sildenafil, and a study group of 155 who received oral sildenafil preoperatively. TVPG, LVEF and NYHA class were recorded preoperatively and postoperatively and were compared. Results: In the study group, postoperative LVEFs and NYHA class were not statistically significant in both groups while postoperative TVPG was significantly lower in study group as compare to control group and is statistically significant (P<0.001). Conclusion: Our study concludes that oral sildenafil preoperatively can be used as an effective therapy to reduce pulmonary pressure in patients with pulmonary hypertension undergoing mitral valve replacement surgery.

Objective: To determine the role of perioperative milrinone on pulmonary hypertension in patients with mitral valve disease undergoing mitral valve replacement surgery. Study Design: Randomized Control Trial. Setting: Department of Cardiac Surgery, Faisalabad Institute of Cardiology, Faisalabad. Period: June 2019 to June 2020. Material & Methods: A total of 80 patients with mitral valve disease who underwent mitral valve replacement were included. The patients were divided into a control group of 40, who were not administered milrinone, and a study group of 40 who received milrinone perioperatively. TVPG, LVEF and NYHA class were recorded preoperatively and postoperatively and were compared. Results: In the study group, postoperative LVEFs and NYHA class were not statistically significant in both groups while postoperative TVPG was significantly lower in study group as compare to control group and is statistically significant (P<0.001). Conclusion: Our study concludes that milrinone can be used as an effective therapy to reduce pulmonary pressure in patients with pulmonary hypertension undergoing mitral valve replacement surgery.

Objective: To evaluate the outcome of thrombolysis in patients of prosthetic valve thrombosis. Methods: This retrospective analysis was conducted on data of 84 patients of prosthetic valve thrombosis who presented to emergency room of Faisalabad Institute of Cardiology between July 2017 to December 2019. The diagnosis of prosthetic valve thrombosis was based on clinical suspicion and bed side transthoracic echocardiography done by a consultant cardiologist. Fluoroscopy was done to confirm the diagnosis by observing immobile valve leaflet. The confirmed patients were then treated in emergency with streptokinase after taking an informed consent. Quantitative variables like age were summarized by mean and standard deviation. Qualitative variables like gender, successful thrombolysis, stroke, major bleeding, mortality or re-do surgery were summarized by frequency and percentage. Results: Mean age was 29 ± 6.36, years and there were more female patients (n=43, 51.25%) as compared to males (n=41, 48.8%). Among the 66 surviving patients thrombolysis was successful without any complications in 56 patients (66.7%). Thrombolysis was successful with minor complications in six patients (7.1%) and it failed to produce desired results in four patients (4.8%). In this study 18 (21.4%) patients died. The common complications included minor bleeding in four patients (4.8%) and major bleeding in 10 patients (12.0 %). Conclusion: Thrombolysis produces reasonable success rate in cases of prosthetic valve thrombosis who are in functional class I or II. However, it has very high mortality rate in patients presenting with functional class III and IV. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.2.3226 How to cite this:Abbas S, Hameed N, Khilji SA, Jalal A. Outcome of thrombolysis with streptokinase in patients with prosthetic valve thrombosis. Pak J Med Sci. 2021;37(2):---------. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.37.2.3226 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.