Long-Term Clinical Results of Tricuspid Valve Replacement

Tricuspid valve replacement (TVR) has been performed with mechanical or bioprosthetic valves. However, the relative advantages of the two types are incompletely known.Between 1978 and 2003, we performed 138 TVR (35 bioprosthetic, 103 mechanical) in 125 patients (50 men, 75 women), with a mean age of 43.7 +/- 16.6 years. The diseases that required TVR were rheumatic (94), prosthetic valve failure (14), congenital (14), infective endocarditis(5),...