We report a 67-year-old man with a tracheostoma who successfully underwent coronary artery bypass grafting and aortic valve replacement. He had received both a tracheostoma just above the sternal notch after total laryngectomy. As the standard full sternotomy might cause mediastinitis, we performed the operation through a lower half sternotomy with a limited skin incision. Postoperatively the w...

Minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass grafting utilising an anterior mini-thoracotomy has traditionally been limited to surgical revascularisation for single or double vessel coronary disease. The widespread use of percutaneous coronary intervention has further limited the use of this technique. Minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass grafting offers the advantage of avoidin...

From 19 February 1999 through 31 October 1999, 16 (8.6%) of 185 patients who underwent median sternotomy developed infections with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Seven patients had mediastinitis, 5 had deep sternal wound infection, 2 had superficial sternal wound infection, 1 had prosthetic valve endocarditis, and 1 had sepsis. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis confirmed that all 13 isolates that were ...

Introduction: Deep sternal wound infection (DSWI) is one of the most complex and potentially devastating complications following median sternotomy in cardiac surgery. Despite many advances in prevention, it still remains significant and ranges between 0.5% and 6.8%. We aim to study the role of vancomycin paste applied locally over sternal edges in reducing DSWI.Materials and Methods...

Does the choice of risk-adjustment model influence the outcome of surgeon-specific mortality analysis? A retrospective analysis of 14637 patients under 31 surgeons. The impact of deep sternal wound infection on long-term survival after coronary artery bypass grafting. sternal wound infection after open-heart surgery: a multivariate analysis of risk factors in 2.579 consecutive operative procedu...

BACKGROUND Sternal wound infection is a devastating complication of cardiothoracic surgery that carries high postoperative morbidity and mortality rates. We explored whether our current program of extensive bacteriological examination including repeat blood cultures may contribute to the early diagnosis of sternal wound infection. METHODS We retrospectively analyzed 112 patients who were subj...