Journal and News Scan

This New STS Expert Consensus Statement is now available to download.

For the first time this protocol gives units who look after patients after cardiac surgery a complete guide for the management for patients who arrest.

Most notably there is a recommendation that patients should undergo an emergency resternotomy within 5 minutes if quickly reversible factors are not found, in order to save those patients who have arrested due to tamponade, for whom external CPR is ineffective.

There are recommendations for the organisation of the team, recommendations against the use of epinephrine, recommendations on how to identify rapidly reversible causes for the arrest and importantly there is advice as to how to implement this guidance into your unit and how to get trained.

The APACVS have also set up a training arm to help with the implementation of the protocol that can be found at www.csu-als.com

This article is a propensity matched analysis comparing patients undergoing hybrid coronary revascularization (HCR) with minimally invasive left internal mammary artery to left anterior descending artery (LAD) bypass and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) to non-LAD arteries to patients undergoing conventional coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) with either single (SIMA) or bilateral internal mammary arteries (BIMA).  A total of 306 patients underwent HCR from 2003 to 2013 compared with 8254 patients undergoing CABG.  In the HCR group LIMA harvest was performed endoscopically before 2009 and with robotic assistance thereafter.   In the matched study populations, cardiopulmonbary bypass was used in 0% of patients in HCR group, 21% in SIMA group and 7% in BIMA group.  Patient factors that were associated with HCR use were older age, lower body mass index, history of PCI, and 2-vessel coronary disease. In the HCR group, 84% of non-LAD lesions were treated with drug eluting stents.  At 30 days, there was no significant difference in major cerebrovascular and cardiac events between groups.  In hospital complications,  the need for blood transfusions, and hospital stay duration were lower for the HCR group.  There was no difference in survival between the matched groups at midterm followup (median follow-up 2.8 years).   The authors conclude that HCR in selected patients may be a safe and less invasive alternative to conventional CABG with similar short and midterm outcomes.

A comprehensive discussion on an important parameter for cardiologists and surgeons dealing with congenital and structural / valve disease, as applicable to the systemic circulation 

There is a rediscovered interest in use of a subxiphoid incision to perform lung surgery. This work follows a review of 105 lobectomies published in March 2016 in the Journal of Thoracic Disease from the same institution, Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital.

Although technical limitations exist when compared with transthoracic VATS and despite patient selction being more restrictive than for traditional surgery, the authors demonstrate the feasibility of anatomical lung resection for benign or malignant disease through the subxyphoid port. The conversion rate is acceptable (5.2%) and no post operative mortality in 153 cases (lobectomies and segmental resections) was observed. One of the main outcomes considered is post operative pain.