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Journal and News Scan
October 14, 2019
Submitted by: Aristotle Protopapas
An extremely interesting research question abutting cardiac physiology, and a manuscript that may generate future additional clinical research.
October 14, 2019
Submitted by: Aristotle Protopapas
Interesting sizeable series, and a commentary that follows, on what is effectively a thoracic example of Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES).
October 12, 2019
Submitted by: Joel Dunning
These incredible findings are the result of an analysis of the New York State Department of Health Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative database. They represent over 99,000 major lung resections from 1995 to 2014. Surgeons performing more than 30 lobectomies per year have a mortality of 1% and surgeons performing less than 12 per year have a mortality of 2.8%. But the most surprising fact is that the low-volume surgeons performed 90% of the lobectomies. Do you agree with the results of this very large study and if you do, what do you think should happen about this?
October 12, 2019
Submitted by: Mark Ferguson
The association of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality with optimism was assessed in this meta-analysis. Optimism was associated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular events (ROR 0.65) and a decrease in all-cause mortality (RR 0.86). Mechansims have yet to be identified.
October 12, 2019
Submitted by: Tom C. Nguyen
Excellent document from the EACTS, STS, and AATS emphasizing the importance of standardization of prosthetic heart valve labeling.
October 11, 2019
Submitted by: Benjamin Bidstrup
This timely review examines the use of single and mutiple agents to decrease saphenous graft failure after CABG. These are difficult and expensive studies to perform, requiring repeat imaging after surgery, a procedure patients are often reluctant to undergo. In this analysis, the use of aspirin remains the lynchpin, with ticagrelor and clopidigrel as second agents improving outcomes, albeit at an increased in risk of bleeding.
October 10, 2019
Submitted by: Mark Ferguson
Reporting of postmarket outcomes for the Sapien 3 and Mitraclip devices frequently misclassified patient deaths as device malfunction or other outcomes. Misclassification for Sapien 3 involved 17.5% of patient deaths, and involved 24.7% of patient deaths for Mitraclip. These outcomes are important for the public and physicians to understand when discussing risks and benefits of such devices.
October 10, 2019
Submitted by: Joel Dunning
David Taggart, MD, PhD (University of Oxford, England), the chairman of the EXCEL surgical committee during the design and recruitment phase of the trial, believes the investigators downplayed the increased risk of all-cause mortality with PCI and oversold the reduced risk of the study’s primary composite endpoint of death, stroke, and MI, particularly since the benefit was largely driven by a higher risk of periprocedural MIs in the CABG arm.
“I found it worrying that there seemed to be a strong signal here and I don’t think that was accurately reflected in the New England Journal of Medicine paper,” Taggart told TCTMD. “We’re not talking about two tablets for a headache. We’re talking about people dying. The data are the data, and that’s what the data show.
October 9, 2019
Submitted by: Mark Ferguson
Ex vivo lung perfusion was used in 25% of transplanted lungs in the Toronto program since 2008. This resulted in an increase in the number of transplanted patients without any degradation of long-term outcomes, including survival and freedom from chronic dysfunction.
October 8, 2019
Submitted by: Emily Robinson
The authors investigated cusp size in patients undergoing aortic valve repair for valve regurgitation. They found that most patients with small cusps have annulus cusp mismatch. They suggested that small cusp size is not a contraindication in aortic valve repair and recommended to secure annulus by plications to correct annulus cusp mismatch.