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Journal and News Scan
August 5, 2013
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In a remarkable large prospective study conducted in the Netherlands, patients who underwent balloon angioplasty alone in the late 1980s were followed for a median of 19.5 years. Of the total 806 patients, 287 persistent smokers after percutaneous coronoary intervention (PCI) were compared to 210 patients who quit smoking after PCI. Those who quit had at least 2.1 years life-expectancy gained compared to persistent smokers. The findings of this study reinforce the notion that interventions can be an opportunity for behavior modifications that can translate into survival benefits.
August 2, 2013
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This retrospective review evaluated combined carotid endarterectomy (CEA) and open heart surgery (OHS), staged CEA and OHS, or OHS combined with staged carotid artery stenting (CAS) using propensity score matching. Staged CAS-OHS and combined CEA-OHS had similar initial outcomes that were better than staged CEA-OHS owing to an increased risk of MI in the latter group. Staged CAS-OHS had better long-term outcomes compared to staged CEA-OHS and combined CEA-OHS. Overall, short-term and long-term outcomes appear to favor staged CAS-OHS.
August 2, 2013
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This issue focuses on total arterial revascularization, including BIMA vs LIMA, mid-term outcomes for RA vs SVG, and totally endoscopic CABGs.
August 1, 2013
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Technical performance in congenital heart surgery, as judged by discharge electrocardiogram and other clinical factors, is associated with postoperative complications including mortality. This study assessed technical performance related to long-term survival in nearly 700 patients. After controlling for risk category and patient age, poor technical performance was found in multivariable analysis to be strongly related to late mortality and the need for late reintervention.
August 1, 2013
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This retrospective single center study assessed the efects of transfusion on outcomes after aortic valve replacement in over 1300 patients. Long-term survival was unaffected by transfusion of red blood cells or platelets. However, transfusion of plasma was associated with a modest but significant decrease in long-term survival.
August 1, 2013
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Optimal therapy (surgery vs multimodality therapy) for clinical T2N0 esophageal cancer is controversial. This STS Database review assessed accuracy of clinical staging compared to pathologic staging in nearly 500 patients who underwent initial resection. T2N0 was confirmed in 27%, 26% were downstaged, and 47% were upstaged. The most common cause for upstaging was nodal involvement without change in T status. In another group of clinical T2N0 patients who underwent induction therapy, upstaging was evident in the resection specimen in 38%.
August 1, 2013
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In this multi-institutional prospective trial, 400 pts at increased risk for pulmonary complications after major abdominal surgery were randomized to standard intraoperative ventilator management and lung-protective management with low tidal volumes and PEEP. A composite of pulmonary and extrapulmonary complications occurred in 27.5% of the control group compared to 10.5% of the treatment group at 7 days. The incidence of respiratory failure was 17% in the control group and 5% in the treatment group. The treatment group length of stay was 2.5 days shorter.
July 31, 2013
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This study sought to investigate the immediate safety and feasibility of complete percutaneous access/closure of arteriotomy for device deployment compared to the surgical approach for transfemoral transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). The percutaneous approach is a feasible access/closure method with a potential of lowering access site infection and bleeding, and shortening hospital stay, while maintaining similar rates of major vascular complications compared to the surgical approach.
July 30, 2013
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The intent of this American Heart Association Scientific Statement is to synthesize and summarize data relevant to sexual activity and heart disease in order to provide recommendations and foster physician and other healthcare professional communication with patients about sexual activity. Recommendations in this document are based on published studies, the Princeton Consensus Panel,4,5 the 36th Bethesda Conference,6–10 European Society of Cardiology recommendations on physical activity and sports participation for patients with CVD,11–13 practice guidelines from the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association14–16 and other organizations,17 and the multidisciplinary expertise of the writing group. The classification of recommendations in this document are based on established ACCF/AHA criteria (Table).
July 30, 2013
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3D printers are slowly entering everyday life and they are increasingly being used in medicine. Doctors at Washington's Children's National Medical Center say the life-size tri-dimensional prints of their patients' hearts helps them in planning and executing surgeries. Magnetic resonance imaging, computer tomography and ultrasound already give pretty good images of patients' internal organs, but doctors at the Children's National Medical Center say nothing beats holding a life-size model of a heart in your hand prior to the surgery. They can study it, plan the procedure and even practice the access to the damaged area. Pediatric cardiologist Laura Olivieri says many of their young patients were born with hearts that did not form as they should have, but surgeons can correct that. "Seeing the heart defect in three dimensions can really help the interventionist or the surgeon plan the best procedure," she said. The hospital acquired the $250,000 printer about 18 months ago and the team is still expanding and finding new areas to print. The procedure always starts with taking a set of three-dimensional images with magnetic resonance imager, computer tomography scanner and ultrasound machine. Highly trained pediatric cardiologists manipulate those images and separate the organ from the noise in the picture. In order to save time in printing they sometimes also cut away parts of the image irrelevant to the planned procedure.