1Assistant Director of ICU at Naval and Veterans Hospital of Athens, Former Director of Intensive Care Unit (CS-ICU) of Joint Corps Armed Forces Cardiac Surgery Department, 401 General Military Hospital of Athens, Greece 2Consultant Cardiac Surgeon of Cardiac Surgery Department, Joint Corps Armed Forces Cardiac Surgery Department, 401 General Military Hospital of Athens, Greece 3Consultant Inte...

BACKGROUND Proposed advantages of port-access cardiac surgery have yet to be substantiated. The authors retrospectively compared patients undergoing port-access cardiac surgery with a matched group undergoing conventional cardiac surgery. METHODS Forty-six patients who underwent port-access cardiac surgery were matched with 46 who underwent conventional cardiac surgery. Absolute criteria for ...

Background: Weaning from mechanical ventilation in the intensive care unit is an important step in the treatment process. More patients in less than 6 hours after cardiac surgery can be separated from mechanical ventilation and extubated. However, 20-40% of patients after cardiac surgery, due to dysfunctional ventilator weaning response (DVWR), still remain under mechanical ventilation. Therefo...

BACKGROUND Our previous randomized, clinical trial showed that postoperative tight glycemic control (TGC) for children undergoing cardiac surgery did not reduce the rate of health care-associated infections compared with standard care (STD). Heterogeneity of treatment effect may exist within this population. METHODS AND RESULTS We performed a post hoc exploratory analysis of 980 children from...

Background—Our previous randomized, clinical trial showed that postoperative tight glycemic control (TGC) for children undergoing cardiac surgery did not reduce the rate of health care–associated infections compared with standard care (STD). Heterogeneity of treatment effect may exist within this population. Methods and Results—We performed a post hoc exploratory analysis of 980 children from b...

AIM In an effort to help alleviate the lack of an adequate pediatric cardiac surgical service that existed in Croatia following 1991 the International Childrens Heart Foundation (ICHF) was asked to provide the necessary surgery. Initially, this project was undertaken as a humanitarian program to provide pediatric cardiac operations. After 5 years, the Republic of Croatia financially sponsored t...

A best evidence topic was written according to a structured protocol. The question addressed was whether smoking cessation prior to cardiac surgery would result in a greater freedom from postoperative complications. A total of 564 papers were found using the reported searches, of which five represented the best evidence to answer the clinical question. The authors, date, journal, study type, po...

INTRODUCTION Despite the advances in modern medicine, cardiac surgery remains associated with significant amounts of blood transfusion and is responsible for nearly 20% of all transfusions in Australasia. Progressive advances in perfusion technology and perioperative supportive management have made it possible for members of the Jehovah's Witnesses (JW) religious group to undergo open cardiac o...