Problem Concerning Cardiac Bioprosthetic Valve Replacement in Children

While cardiac prosthetic valve replacement has been widely practised,no ideal prosthetic valve has ever been available yet and many problems are to be solved.In children to receive the replacement,more problems may arise. This article presents 3 cases of porcine bioprostheticcardiacvalye replacement with Tianjin Model porcine valvular bioprostheses on children.Follow-up of 2 cases and autopsy findings of the third who died 26 months after the operation are also presented.Fully discussed in this paper are the problems we encountered,such as：(1)case selection,(2)relation between the patient's age and the external diameter of the bioprosthesls as well as other related problems,(3)choice of the prosthetic valve,(4)degeneration and calcification of the bioprosthetic valve,(5)use of electrocardiogram in follow-up studies,and (6)anticoagulation therapy.