Hematologic investigation in patients who underwent aortic valve replacement with silicon ball valve (Starr-Edwards and Smeloff-Cutter) in 16 cases and pyrolite carbon tilting disc valve (Lillehei-Kaster etc.) in 18 cases were undertaken. All patients have been followed for more than one year after operation and they were free from any medical or surgical problems. There was no statistical significance between silicon ball valve and tilting disc valve in whole blood examination, total bililubin, serum iron and serum LDH. Both group showed higher level of serum LDH activity, which means chronic hemolysis. Haptoglobin level of all cases showed under 100mg/dl, which was also showed chronic hemolysis. The mean values of tilting disc valve showed statistically significant higher levels than that of silicon ball valve (44.72±20.98mg/dl vs. 31.44±12.79mg/dl, p<0.05). So silicon ball valve showed a more tendency to produce hemolysis in a aortic position when compared to pyrolite carbon tilting disc valve.
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