No abstract

Current consensus guidelines of the American Heart Association and European Society of Cardiology uniformly recommend either type of prosthetic valve for patients aged between 60 and 70 years and mechanical prosthesis for patients aged less than 60 years. These recommendations are based on the results of randomized controlled trials that demonstrated no significant difference in late survival. Two of these trials compared mechanical and bioprosthetic valve models implanted in 1970s and 1980s. The other two trials included patients undergoing aortic valve replacement. Contemporary data are limited to small single-center studies

A 58-year-old male patient with degenerated St. Jude Epic mitral bioprosthesis underwent successful mitral valve replacement using 29 mm St. Jude Medical mechanical prosthesis. Case history presented here to prevent organ injury via a transeptal approach for a degenerated epic bioprosthesis.