Streptokinase thrombolysis may be a safe and successful alternative to surgery for chronically thrombosed mitral prosthetic valves.
May support thrombolysis in select obstructed mitral prostheses; leaves open need for controlled trials versus surgery.
Thrombus obstruction of a prosthetic heart valve is usually treated surgically. We report a well-documented case of an obstructed mitral prosthetic valve where fibrinolytic treatment was successful. Furthermore the thrombus formation probably had occurred 6 months earlier. Thus fibrinolysis appears to be a safe alternative to surgery although late occurrence of thrombosis may be possible.
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Gagnon et al. (1984) studied this question.
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