Surgery plays a central role in the management of acquired valvular heart disease. Prosthetic valve thrombosis is a rare but serious life-threatening complication of valve replacement, most often encountered with mechanical prostheses. The risk of valve thrombosis depends on the type of prosthesis, the adequacy of anticoagulant therapy, the position of the valve and the presence of prothrombotic conditions. Inadequate level of anticoagulation is the most important factor involved in the pathogenesis of prosthetic valve thrombosis. The severity of symptoms highly depends on the degree of valve obstruction caused by the prosthetic valve thrombosis. Multimodality imaging is crucial in the diagnosis and management of prosthetic heart valve thrombosis and also for differential diagnosis between thrombus and pannus. Optimization of anticoagulant therapy, thrombolysis and surgical intervention are the main methods of treatment of patients with valve thrombosis. Thrombolytic therapy has become an alternative to surgery in the treatment of obstructive prosthetic valve thrombosis in recent years. The use of low-dose slow or ultraslow intravenous infusion of tissue plasminogen activator under the control of transesophageal echocardiography leads to high efficiency of thrombolysis with a low level of complications and mortality. The efficacy and safety of thrombolysis compared to surgery should be confirmed with the results of large observational and randomized trials.
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