Hemodynamic assessment of Lillehei-Kaster tilting disc aortic and mitral prostheses

Twenty six patients with Lillehei-Kaster prosthetic heart valves, 15 with aortic and 11 with mitral valves, were catheterized to assess their hemodynamic performance. The calculated effective orifice areas were linearly related to but always less than their actual orifice areas. There was no significant difference in the effective orifice area of the mitral or aortic prostheses of similar size. The aortic prosthesis with an annulus diameter of 21 mm. was found to have a mean effective orifice area of 0.77 sq. cm. Our catheter studies have demonstrated no hemodynamic advantages of the Lillehei-Kaster aortic and mitral prosthetic valves over prosthetic valves.