Home monitoring of patients after prosthetic valve replacement-a new method of early detection of valve dysfunction

Abstract

Despite enormous progress concerning material and design, patients with artificial heart valves still face a considerable risk of serious complications (e. g. hemorrhage, thromboemboli, redos) which sum up to 5-20% within the first 10 postoperative years depending on type and position of the implanted prosthetic valve. Nowadays technical defects of mechanical valves are negligible and relevant complications are most frequently the consequence of inappropriate oral anticoagulation therapy. To avoid these complications a strict control of both the anticoagulation therapy and the functional integrity of the prosthetic valve is mandatory. Therefore with the aim of risk minimization the patient should be enabled to cooperate by means of methods which are easy to handle in his everyday environment. We present a reliable method for early detection of prosthetic valve dysfunction which can be applied daily with minimal effort by the patient himself.