Echocardiographic assessment of the Hall Kaster mitral prosthesis.

To study the effect of the Hall Kaster prosthesis on left ventricular filling characteristics after mitral valve replacement, postoperative M-mode echocardiograms of the left ventricle from sixteen patients were digitized to determine the peak rate of dimension (D) increase of the left ventricle during diastole (peak dD/dt) and the rapid filling period (RFP). These were compared with fourteen normal controls, thirty patients with Starr Edwards and thirty patients with Bjork Shiley mitral prosthesis. Results suggest that the Hall Kaster mitral prosthesis is less obstructive than either the Starr Edwards or the Bjork Shiley prosthesis, and tends to approximate the normal mitral valve.