Pulmonary hypertension, a common manifestation of advanced sarcoidosis, is thought to result from fibrosis with chronic hypoxia and destruction of small vessels, extrinsic compression of pulmonary arteries, or granulomatous vasculitis. We report a case of sarcoidosis-associated pulmonary hypertension due to fibrosing mediastinitis. Our patient presented with cough and dyspnea on exertion and wa...

A 41-year-old man sought evaluation at the emergency department for pain in the anterior chest that had been ongoing for approximately 35 hours. The electrocardiogram showed marked ST segment elevation in the precordial leads. Cardiac biomarker levels were elevated. He subsequently underwent coronary angioplasty and stenting of the left anterior descending artery using two sirolimus-eluting ste...

A rare case of descending necrotizing mediastinitis (DNM) secondary to a nontraumatic retropharyngeal abscess is reported. Even in the era of antibiotics, the mortality of DNM is still around 40%. In spite of drainage of a localized neck abscess, and the administration of systemic antibiotics, the retropharyngeal abscess extended to the pericardial and pleural cavities. Several drainage procedu...

Deep sternal infections, also known as poststernotomy mediastinitis, are a rare but often fatal complication in cardiac surgery. They are a cause of increased morbidity and mortality and have a significant socioeconomic aspect concerning the health system. Negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) followed by muscular pectoralis plasty is a quite new technique for the treatment of mediastinitis af...

EuroSCORE (European System for Cardiac Operative Risk Evaluation) used for calculating the risk of the postoperative mortality rate for patients undergoing open-heart surgery may be able to predict postoperative complications as well. Consecutive cases of isolated on-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) (n=1552) performed between 1991 and 2006 at our hospital group were placed into a sys...

INTRODUCTION Sternal dehiscence, sternal wound infection and mediastinitis are troublesome complications following median sternotomy which are major causes of morbidity and mortality of patients. Synthetic polydioxanone absorbable suture seems effective in prevention of these complications in children undergoing open heart surgery. METHODS During 2 years period, 620 patients who underwent med...