BACKGROUND With improvements in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) techniques, the quality and the effectiveness of CPR have been established; nevertheless, the survival rate after cardiac arrest still remains poor. Recently, many reports have shown good outcomes in cases where extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) was used during prolonged CPR. Accordingly, we attempted to evaluate the i...

Conventional methods for estimating cardiopulmonary variables usually require complex gas analyzers and the active co-operation of the patient. Therefore, they are not compatible with the crowded environment of the intensive care unit (ICU) or operating theatre, where patient co-operation is typically impossible. However, it is these patients that would benefit the most from accurate estimation...

Background: Tranthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is increasingly utilized in the management of critically ill patients in whom right heart catheterization (RHC) was frequently used in the past. We tested the hypothesis that bedside TTE can substitute for RHC for determining the etiology of cardiopulmonary compromise in critically ill patients when initial clinical assessment is limited. Methods:...

BACKGROUND Intestinal mucosal ischaemia can occur in infants and children during and after cardiac surgery. Severe decreases in mucosal perfusion may cause complications such as necrotizing enterocolitis and postoperative mortality. We investigated gut permeability in paediatric patients undergoing cardiac surgery using the dual sugar permeability test and absorption of two other saccharides. ...

OBJECTIVES Patients with coronary artery disease and left ventricular dysfunction have high mortality when kept in clinical treatment. Coronary artery bypass grafting can improve survival and the quality of life. Recently, revascularization without cardiopulmonary bypass has been presented as a viable alternative. The aim of this study is to compare patients with left ventricular ejection fract...

is book aims at providing an ‘easily readable source of material for the everyday practice of clinical perfusion’. Th e information included should interest both newcomers to perfusion and also more experienced perfusion ists, anesthesiologists and surgeons. Th is 207-pages work includes 15 chapters, is well illustrated and contains a lot of tables and interesting diagrams. Th e fi rst chapters...

myocardial bridging with systolic compression of the left anterior descending coronary artery (lad) may be associated with myocardial ischemia. in symptomatic myocardial bridging unresponsive to medical treatment, surgical unroofing of the left lad can be performed. little information is available about the long-term prognosis of patients with this coronary anomaly after the surgical unroofing,...

BACKGROUND Because of its rapid onset and recovery profile, propofol-mediated sedation is predominantly used during endoscopy. OBJECTIVE To examine procedure-specific occurrence and risk factors for cardiopulmonary events during propofol-mediated gastrointestinal endoscopy in patients aged over 70 years. METHODS Retrospective study with the anesthesia recorder system was performed to determ...

Although factors influencing renin release have been studied extensively, one facet of renin release remains controversial, namely, neural regulation by arterial high-pressure receptors and cardiopulmonary low-pressure receptors. We therefore designed four studies to investigate systematically the separate and combined effects of unloading (decreased stretch) high- and low-pressure receptors on...