Late complications of prosthetic heart valves.

Iatrogenic lesions induced during prosthesis insertion are likely to be encountered by a pathologist examining a patient who died of late complications of heart-valve prosthesis. The lesions are classified as those that may occur in any patient who has had a heart-valve prosthesis inserted, including the iatrogenic type and those that are uniquely associated with a particular prosthesis because of its structure or design.