The total synthesis of the architecturally complex Daphniphyllum alkaloid (-)-calyciphylline N has been achieved. Highlights of the synthesis include a Et2AlCl-promoted, highly stereoselective, susbtrate-controlled intramolecular Diels-Alder reaction, a transannular enolate alkylation, an effective Stille carbonylation/Nazarov cyclization sequence, and a high-risk diastereoselective hydrogenati...

BACKGROUND Pulmonary valve (PV) insufficiency is often an acquired condition after treatment for pulmonary stenosis. It is recognized that PV insufficiency has serious deleterious effects. Although surgical replacement of the PV is efficacious, artificial valves inevitably fail and require re-intervention. The purpose of this study was to summarize our experience with PV repair in patients with...

Background: Total repair of tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) during young infancy had been recently advocated, but recent outcomes leave this question undecided. Methods: Between 1992 and 2002, 259 consecutive TOF patients received total repair in our hospital. To avoid confounding by previous shunt operations, we excluded those patients receiving staged shunt operation in the following analysis. Ther...

Intramolecular transannular dipolar cycloaddition was investigated as a key step in a synthetic approach to the core of the sarain alkaloids; although the use of an azomethine ylide was unsuccessful with the chosen aldehyde substrate, cycloaddition with a nitrone did give the alternative regioisomeric bridged cycloadduct.

Difluorinated cyclooctenones, synthesised using RCM, can be used as templates for stereoselective oxidative transformations to products that undergo transannular reactions to afford conformationally-locked analogues of 2-deoxy-2,2-difluorosugars with different stereochemical relationships between the C-2 and C-3 hydroxyl groups.

We thank Yurekli et al. [1] for their questions and comments relating to our publication, where we examined how the postoperative pulmonary annular gradient related to pulmonary valve annular size after total correction of tetralogy of Fallot [2]. We examined the patients who did not have significant postoperative right ventricular outflow tract obstruction (RVOTO). We discussed the implication...