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Journal and News Scan
May 8, 2023
Submitted by: Emily Farkas
This article presents a tier-based framework with proposed benchmarks for the development of quality pediatric and congenital heart disease care in resource-limited settings. This was achieved by identifying the most common barriers to care and using a literature review method to determine the most effective solutions.
May 4, 2023
Submitted by: Cameron Lind
A team of surgeons at National Heart Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia collaborated with a team from the University of Michigan to complete the first total aortic arch replacement in the country. Despite the patient’s 8 cm aortic dissection, the procedure was uneventful with no complications. This was part of an ongoing effort to strengthen Zambia’s cardiac care teams and resources.
May 4, 2023
Submitted by: Cameron Lind
A systematic review of prognostic factors for five-year survival after pulmonary metastasectomy (PM) from colorectal cancer (CRC) identified 11 of 77 preoperative factors as having statistically significant positive effects. These included a solitary metastasis < 2 cm. The disease free interval at twenty-four months did not affect five-year survival. These findings consolidate the evidence and support clinical practice and future research design.
April 28, 2023
Submitted by: Edward Savage
This double-blind, randomized study compared albumin to Ringer's acetate for volume resuscitation. The results showed that the group that was perioperatively administered albumin had a greater blood loss and higher UDBP compared to those who were administered Ringer’s acetate.
April 28, 2023
Submitted by: Cameron Lind
The first ever heart transplant with a still-beating heart from a donor who had undergone cardiac death was performed recently at Stanford Medicine. This method allows for less cardiac injury and a lower chance of morbidity for the recipient. The new method expands the donor pool for the more that 3,500 people in the US who are awaiting a heart transplant. Read the original report.
April 28, 2023
Submitted by: Cameron Lind
Recent studies have found that SAVR after TAVR has a significantly high mortality rate. Because of this, surgeons should try to avoid redo procedures in TAVR patients by considering how different risk factors will contribute to outcomes. Some researchers argue that while the database that supplied this research is large, it lacks granularity. Mid- and long-term research on the performance of redo TAVR is needed to come to a conclusion.
April 28, 2023
Submitted by: Aristotle Protopapas
This study compared vein bypass with best endovascular treatment for chronic limb-threatening ischemia. The twice-quoted phrase of the RCT manuscript: “Participants were excluded if they had ischemic pain or tissue loss considered not to be primarily due to atherosclerotic peripheral artery disease” needs further clarification. Major amputation or death occurred in 63 percent of patients in the vein bypass group and 53 percent of patients in the best endovascular treatment group. Researchers concluded that for this group, a revascularization procedure to restore limb perfusion should be considered.
April 28, 2023
Submitted by: Jo Chikwe
In this single-center expert series of 1000 robotic-assisted left internal mammary artery harvest and off-pump anastomosis to the left anterior descending coronary artery through a 4 cm thoracotomy, 30 day mortality was 0.6 percent, stroke occurred in 5 patients (5 percent), and postoperative graft patency was 97.2 percent (491 of 505). The authors report that between 250 and 500 cases were required to acquire “mastery.”
April 26, 2023
Submitted by: Wei-Guo Ma
On April 21, Dr. Randy Moore at the University of Calgary in Canada performed the first implantation of Terumo's new hybrid graft, Thoracoflo, in North America for thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm repair. Thoracoflo consists of a proximal stent graft for transabdominal retrograde delivery to the descending aorta and a distal six-branched abdominal device for open aortic repair.
April 21, 2023
Submitted by: Cameron Lind
A researcher at Stanford has developed a method to visually identify the cardiac conduction system during surgery in order to avoid harm during cardiac surgery. To do this, antibodies are bound to surface markers on cardiac conduction cells and can be seen with infrared light. This is especially helpful for patients with congenital heart defects, as the anatomical landmarks that surgeons normally follow to avoid the cardiac conduction system may be different. The team hopes to launch a clinical trial in humans in a few years.