Calcific aortic stenosis is a progressive disease with no effective medical therapy that ultimately requires aortic valve replacement (AVR) for severe valve obstruction. Echocardiography is the primary diagnostic approach to define valve anatomy, measure aortic stenosis severity, and evaluate the left ventricular response to chronic pressure overload. In asymptomatic patients, markers of diseas...

Aortic stenosis (AS) and aortic incompetence (AI) are common aortic valve diseases. Both may deteriorate into irreversible myocardial dysfunction and will increase the risk of sudden death. In this study, we aimed to investigate the early variation trend of left ventricular function by three-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (3D-STE) in the patients who underwent cardiac surgeries f...

BACKGROUND Atrial fibrillation (AF) is recognized as a common complication of open cardiac surgery, occurring in up to 65% of patients. The advancing age and increasing risk profile of patients receiving aortic valve replacement (AVR) surgery is expected to raise incidence of new-onset postoperative AF resulting in potentially higher risk of adverse outcomes. In the early postoperative course, ...

The authors examined the relation of narrowed retinal arteriolar diameters, a marker of hypertensive damage, to mortality in a population-based cohort of 4,926 persons aged 43-84 years living in Wisconsin. A computer-assisted method was used to measure retinal vessel diameters from digitized retinal photographs taken at the baseline examination (1988-1990). These measurements were summarized as...

Surgical procedures involving heart and liver are rare and have been limited to either combined heart and liver transplantation or coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) or aortic valve surgery and orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). Aortic valve replacement (AVR) and pulmonary valve vegetectomy for bacterial endocarditis after OLT have also been reported. There are only five cases wit...

AIMS Regional myocardial function may change differently in different pathology. Speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) was applied to evaluate longitudinal, radial, and circumferential function in patients with aortic stenosis (AS) before, within 1 week, and 6 months after aortic valve replacement (AVR). METHODS AND RESULTS In 40 consecutive patients with severe AS, we acquired apical four-...

OBJECTIVE Surgical aortic valve replacement (AVR) remains the gold standard therapy for severe aortic stenosis. Long-term survival data following AVR is required. Our objective was to provide a detailed contemporary benchmark of long-term survival following AVR among elderly patients (≥65 years) in the UK. METHODS We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 1815 adult patients undergoing sur...

OBJECTIVE To assess whether the use of inverted lead aVR (-aVR) would improve the classification of acute inferior or lateral myocardial infarction presenting with ST elevation. DESIGN Observational study. The presence of >/= 1 mm ST elevation in lead -aVR (derived by manual assessment of ST depression in conventional lead aVR) was determined by a single investigator, blinded to patient outco...

OBJECTIVES Minimally invasive cardiac surgery has been developed to offer patients the benefits of open heart operations with decreased pain and limited skin incision. A limited superior median sternotomy has been shown to provide a good exposure for aortic valve replacement (AVR) and good results. In this study we report the results of minimally invasive AVR compared to standard sternotomy AVR...