Background: Valvar heart disease is an important public health problem, more common in developing countries, especially in younger.
Objective: To evaluate the epidemiological features of patients and its influence on the prosthesis type choice used on patients who underwent valve surgery.
Methods: Cross-sectional. Data such as age, sex, provenance, surgery procedure and prosthesis type were retrospectively analyzed. We reviewed 366 charts of all patients submitted to heart valve surgery during three years in a public health cardiovascular treatment center.
Results: 52% of patients were female. The age range was from 5 to 82, the median was 41 years old. In regards 37.7% of patients came from Salvador (Bahia, Brazil) and 62.3% from countryside. Valve replacement was performed in 73% of patients, whereas 7.38% underwent valvuloplasty and 18.3% underwent valve repair and replacement. Regarding type of prosthesis, 70.0% received bioprosthesis and 30.0% received metal prosthesis. On note bioprosthesis were more used in younger (P<0,001).
Conclusion: Biological prostheses were used predominantly in younger. This might be possible due to a low social-economic status, avoiding metal valve implantation and the consequent anticoagulation therapy.