An FDA advisory committee voted 6-4 against expanding approved indications for liposomal bupivicaine for regional pain control after surgery. This drug is a central element in many institutions' Enhanced Recovery After Surgery programs. They cited inconsistent results, failure to provide comparative results, and increased deaths associated with the
ALERT!
This site is not optimized for Internet Explorer 8 (or older).
Please upgrade to a newer version of Internet Explorer or use an alternate browser such as Chrome or Firefox.
Cardiac
February 15, 2018
This report provides long-term outcome data on the Perimount valve implanted in the mitral position in patients 65 years of age or less. The expected valve durability was 14.2 years, which compares favourably with other prosthetic valves.
February 15, 2018
This represent a large series of patients with HOCM who were treated surgically. The study provides prognostic data based on the morphology of the HOCM, which was divided into basal septum, whole of septum, and diffuse left ventricular hypertrophy. Each group had differing survival.
February 15, 2018
Christopher Young of St Thomas’ Hospital in London, UK, reviews clinical trials on sutureless aortic valve implantation.
February 14, 2018
Wang and colleagues present a systematic review of outcomes reported in 26 articles for 67 patients who underwent endovascular treatment for diseases of the ascending aorta, excluding type A dissection. The authors expect a gain in popularity of this intervention in select high-risk patients, but they consider further analysis necessary.
February 14, 2018
Interesting article commenting on the perception that some remedies in medicine are so obviously beneficial that testing their effectiveness is a waste of time. As it turns out, many of what physicians think are "slam dunk" remedies have mixed or negative results.
February 13, 2018
This video demonstrates the emergency separation of conjoined hearts in a pair of twins, in whom the failing circulation of one twin threatened the survival of the healthy twin within hours of delivery.
February 9, 2018
In this meta-analysis, the authors compare surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) with transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) in patients at low surgical risk. They included two randomized controlled trials and four propensity-matched studies for a total of almost 3500 patients.
February 8, 2018
Mark Bennett of the Southwest Cardiothoracic Unit in Plymouth, UK, discusses biomarkers for problems during cardiopulmonary bypass.
February 6, 2018
The authors conducted a prospective randomized study of 20 high-risk cardiac surgical patients, split into two groups: pulsatile versus nonpulsatile flow during cardiopulmonary bypass. Using spectral imaging and near-infrared technology, the group found that the the pulsatile perfusion group maintained better perfusion indices in the microcirculati