Percutaneous implantation of Edwards SAPIEN valve into pulmonary bioprosthesis (valve-in-valve).

We report the case of a 14-year-old boy affected by Tetralogy of Fallot and pulmonary atresia, who had already undergone multiple surgical procedures. He had later developed a steno-insufficiency of the pulmonary bioprosthesis. We performed a percutaneous pulmonary valve implantation (PPVI), which is a minimally invasive treatment, as effective as conventional valve surgery and associated with less morbidity and mortality. Up to now PPVI has been carried out in patients with chronic pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) in the presence of a right ventricular outflow tract (RVOT) patch by prior deployment of an intravascular stent as an artificial conduit that makes subsequent valve implantation possible. The peculiarity of our procedure was that we implanted the valve directly on to the annulus of the bioprosthesis (valve-in-valve), without performing a prestenting of the prosthetic valve.

Primary coronary embolism as an unusual manifestation of nonbacterial thrombotic endocarditis in a patient with gastric cancer.

Nonbacterial thrombotic endocarditis (NBTE) is a rare clinical condition characterized by the presence of sterile vegetations on valvular leaflets Gross and Friedberg (1936). The most frequent cause of NBTE is antiphospholipid syndrome Hughson and et al. (1993); malignancy, through an intrinsic condition of hypercoagulability, is the second most common cause Thomas (2001). Systemic thromboembolic complications are frequently associated with this condition, but coronary embolism is not common. We report the case of a patient with NBTE secondary to gastric adenocarcinoma with clinical symptoms of coronary and systemic emboli.