severe inflammation after cardiopulmonary bypass with the vasculitis of the acral extremity and vertebro-basilar arterial system leads to the locked-in syndrome and blue toe syndrome. in broad terms, systemic, idiopathic, and environmental factors provoke syndromes that present with digital discoloration or the blue toe syndrome. painful digital discoloration, accompanied by ulceration, suggest...

  Multiple aorto-cardiac cavity communications is very rare but important complication of prosthetic aortic valve endocarditis. The case below illustrates multiple aorto-cardiac cavity fistula formation following prostethic aortic valve endocarditis presented with slowly progressive symptoms of heart failure. A brief review of surgical reconstruction and the existing literature are presented, i...

background: extubation is associated with the risk of complications such as accumulated secretion above the endotracheal tube cuff, eventual atelectasia following a reduction in pulmonary volumes because of a lack of physiological positive end expiratory pressure, and intra-tracheal suction. in order to reduce these complications, and, based on basic physiological principles, a new practical ex...

background: postoperative cognitive dysfunction (pocd) has been an important complication of cardiac surgery over the years. neurocognitive dysfunction can affect quality of life and lead to social, functional, emotional, and financial problems in the patient’s life. to reduce pocd, we sought to identify the association between cognitive dysfunction and perioperative factors in patients undergo...

conclusions patients’ experiences after cardiac surgery indicated the need for the consideration of holistic care and supportive intervention programs after surgery to promote recovery and a better quality of life following cardiac surgery. results the data analysis revealed three main themes and 11 subthemes, categorized as conceptual and abstract, based on their nature: concern of going out t...

results of 153 patients, 96.8% received pc and 54.9% transfused ffp during or after surgery. most of the transfusions were done after operation in intensive care unit (icu). also, 20% and 17% of the patients underwent transfusion of more than 6 units of pc and ffp, respectively. the mean left ventricular ejection fraction of the patients was 42.5 ± 10.9%. a significant number of patients had an...

background: injured phrenic nerve secondary to cardiac surgeries is the most common cause of diaphragmatic paralysis (dp) in infants. the aim of this study was to determine the risk factors for dp caused by congenital heart defect corrective surgeries in pediatrics. methods: this cross-sectional study, conducted in a 2-year period (2006 – 2008), included 451 children with congenital heart disea...

atrioventricular groove rupture is a rare, albeit mortal, complication following mitral valve surgery. avoidance is the best strategy but it cannot fully prevent the occurrence of this complication. several repair techniques have been described with varying success rates; however, the rarity of the complication precludes consensus about the safest technique. here we report two cases of posterio...

a secundum atrial septal defect is the most common congenital heart defect. transcatheter treatment of secundum atrial septal defects is a popular and less invasive alternative to surgery. procedural complications may occur in a wide spectrum, particularly device embolus as the most emergent one, but luckily they do not commonly occur in the clinical setting. mortality from adverse events relat...

now-a-days truncus arteriosus has been known as “common arterial trunk” (cat) and is an uncommon congenital cardiac defect presenting in about 1-3% congenital heart disease. environmental and genetic factors effects on incidence of cat and other conotruncal anomalies. the majority patients with cat and 22q11 deletion have other anomalies such as hypoplasia or aplasia of the thymus or parath...