OBJECTIVE Ventricular enlargement following head injury is a frequent finding but cases requiring shunt operation are rare. The incidence and developing factors of post-traumatic hydrocephalus (PTH) have been variously reported, but studies for factors influencing outcomes of shunt operation for PTH are rare. The incidence of PTH requiring shunt operation, causing injuries, and factors influenc...

Adenosine is a potent vasodilator used extensively to study the coronary circulation of animals. Its use in humans, however, has been hampered by lack of knowledge about its effects on the human coronary circulation and by concern about its safety. We investigated in humans the effects of adenosine, administered by intracoronary bolus (2-16 jig), intracoronary infusion (10-240 ,ug/min), or intr...

BACKGROUND/AIM Ventriculoperitoneal shunt infections remain an important problem and result mainlyfrom perioperative colonization of shunt components by skin flora. Antibiotic-impregnated shunts have been designed to prevent such colonization. T'his study evaluates the incidence of shunt infection after the insertion of antibiotic-impregnated shunts in a population of children with hydrocephalu...

A 15-month-old girl with hydrocephalus from an intraventricular hemorrhage presented to the emergency department with irritability, lethargy and vomiting. Our neurosurgery team had inserted a ventriculoperitoneal shunt 10 months earlier. Computed tomography of the patient’s brain showed enlarged ventricles relative to postoperative imaging from when she had been asymptomatic. The child was brou...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether the proximal isovelocity surface area (PISA) method could be applied to estimate the magnitude of ventricular septal defect (VSD) shunt flow. DESIGN Prospective analysis of clinical, echocardiographic, and angiographic data. SETTING University hospital. PATIENTS 14 children with VSD. METHODS Colour Doppler images of VSD shunt flow were obtained in paraster...

Background Intracoronary administration of bone marrow-derived progenitor cells (BMC) was shown to improve coronary microvascular function in ischemic heart disease. Since coronary microvascular dysfunction is implicated in the pathogenesis and prognosis of non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), we investigated the effects of intracoronary BMC administration in patients with DCM. Methods an...

This editorial refers to ‘Intracoronary infusion of bone marrow-derived selected CD34CXCR4 cells and nonselected mononuclear cells in patients with acute STEMI and reduced left ventricular ejection fraction: results of the randomized, multicentre Myocardial Regeneration by Intracoronary Infusion of Selected Population of Stem Cells in Acute Myocardial Infarction (REGENT) Trial’, by M. Tendera e...

Background—Eptifibatide reduces major adverse cardiac events in patients with acute coronary syndromes undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Intracoronary bolus administration of eptifibatide may result in higher levels of platelet glycoprotein IIb/IIIa receptor occupancy in the local coronary bed, disaggregate thrombus in the epicardial artery and microvasculature, and thereby i...

BACKGROUND Preclinical studies in rodents and pigs indicate that the self-assembling microtissues known as cardiospheres may be more effective than dispersed cardiosphere-derived cells. However, the more desirable intracoronary route has been assumed to be unsafe for cardiosphere delivery: Cardiospheres are large (30-150 μm), raising concerns about likely microembolization. We questioned these ...

The EX-PRESS shunt (Alcon Laboratory) is a stainless steel implant designed to shunt aqueous from the anterior chamber to the subconjunctival space.Thedevice isplacedundera scleral flap,with the lumenideallypositionedparallel to the iris. A properly positioned EX-PRESS shunt creates acontrolledcommunicationbetween the anterior chamber and the bleb.1 Several shunt-specific complications havebeen...