Valvular emergencies.

Valvular emergencies result from a wide variety of causes, including infectious, inflammatory, ischemic, traumatic, degenerative, and recently iatrogenic processes. In addition, prosthetic valves have brought new valvular emergencies that present unique challenges in diagnosis and therapy. The advent of color Doppler and TEE have provided significant enhancements to our diagnostic armamentarium. Similarly, thrombolytic therapy has also found a place in the treatment of a common prosthetic valve emergency--thrombosed mechanical valves. Because of the likelihood of serious consequences, rapid diagnosis and aggressive management of valvular emergencies are needed, but the results can be very gratifying and lead to excellent short- and long-term outcomes.