Over a 9-yt'ar period, 58 patients who had pre"ious portasyslemic shunt procedures unden-ent orthotopic liver transplantation (OtTx) under a cyclosporine-steroid immunosuppresshe regimen. The types of shunt used were distal splenorenal (18 patients), mesocaval (17 patients). end-to-side portacaval (II patients). side-to-side portaca,'al (5 patients) and proximal splenorenal (7 patients). The me...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The craniospinal epidural spaces can be categorized into 3 different compartments related to their specific drainage role of the bone and central nervous system, the ventral epidural, dorsal epidural, and lateral epidural groups. We propose this new classification system for dural arteriovenous shunts and compare demographic, angiographic, and clinical characteristics of ...

OBJECT Severely increased intracranial pressure (ICP) can be life threatening in patients who had previously undergone shunt treatment but who do not experience ventricular enlargement. The authors analyzed the utility of placing shunts into the cisterna magna concurrently with ventricular shunts in patients who were not candidates for lumboperitoneal (LP) shunt placement. METHODS Ten patient...

OBJECTIVES This study was conducted to evaluate the intermediate-term results of the multi-institutional U.S. trial of the buttoned device for transcatheter closure of atrial septal defects (ASDs). BACKGROUND The trial was conducted in three centers (University of Arizona, University of Michigan and University of Wisconsin) under a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved clinical trial wi...

OBJECTIVE Hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS) is characterized by hypoxia in patients with chronic liver disease. The mechanism of HPS includes pulmonary vasodilatation, inflammation, and angiogenesis. Prostaglandins synthesized by cyclooxygenases (COX) participate in vascular responsiveness, inflammation and angiogenesis, which can be modulated by COX inhibitors. We therefore evaluated the impact o...

A method for the detection and quantification of left-to-right intracardiac shunts is described which utilizes a single breath inhalation of oxygen-15 labeled carbon dioxide (C15O2). The inhaled gas rapidly crosses the alveolar membrane and the oxygen-15 label is exchanged through the carbonate cycle to form oxygen-15 labeled water within the pulmonary capillary blood. Pulmonary indicator clear...

The presence of naturally portacaval shunts has been investigated in the vasculature of normal and Schistosoma mansoni-infected Rattus rattus. Using the technique of injecting Polystyrene microspheres in the superior mesenteric vein, we demonstrated that the presence of adult schistosomes in the lungs of R. rattus was not due to an innate anomaly of the rat vasculature but resulted from the for...

T HE platinized platinum electrode develops a rapidly responding and readily recorded potential in the presence of hydrogen dissolved in blood. A sensitive procedure for detecting and localizing left-to-right shunts in the catheterization laboratory"2 and in the operating room3 has been developed with use of such an electrode on the tip of a cardiac catheter. Hydrogen has been found to be compl...

Arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) are tortuous vessels characterized by arteriovenous (AV) shunts, which displace capillaries and shunt blood directly from artery to vein. Notch signaling regulates embryonic AV specification by promoting arterial, as opposed to venous, endothelial cell (EC) fate. To understand the essential role of endothelial Notch signaling in postnatal AV organization, we u...