Soon after the development of "closed" techniques for the surgical repair of acquired cardiac valvular lesions, a postoperative syndrome characterized mainly by the development of fever and pleuropericarditis was recognized in many of the patients undergoing these procedures.' The advent of "open" cardiac surgical procedures employing cardiopulmonary bypass has resulted in the recent recognitio...

BACKGROUND Surgical ventricular restoration is an option in patients with coronary artery disease, heart failure, postinfarction left ventricular aneurysm or ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy with or without ventricular tachycardia. The aims of this study were to investigate survival and re-admission for heart failure and to identify predictors for early and long-term mortality and re-admission a...

The autonomic nervous system interacts in the pathophysiology of heart failure. Dysfunction of the sympathetic nervous system has been identified as an important prognostic marker in patients with chronic heart failure. At present, cardiac sympathetic nerve imaging with 123-iodine metaiodobenzylguanidine [123-I MIBG] has been employed most frequently for the assessment of cardiac sympathetic in...

The cardiac surgical procedures are increasingly performed each year up to a number >700000 (data in 1997 in US) per year, of which >600000 are coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) procedures. After 1997, there has been a gradual decrease in CABG procedures as percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) grow. In 2005, a total of 699000 cardiac surgical procedures were reported, including 469000...

There are a number of misconceptions that first-year medical students have concerning the pathophysiology of heart failure. These stem from 1) a poor definition of heart failure, 2) a lack of care in distinguishing between similar but distinct concepts, and 3) the inability to recognize the relationship between the various stages of heart failure and the clinical manifestation of the disease. I...

Cardiac fibroma is a rare primary tumor of the heart. Patients can be asymptomatic or present with palpitations, cardiac murmur, syncope, arrhythmias, symptoms of congestive heart failure, or sudden death. We report a case of successful surgical excision of a giant cardiac fibroma in an asymptomatic child. Eur Res J 2018;4(1):52-54

I n 1986, the landmark vasodilator trial, the Vasodilator– Heart Failure Trial (V-HeFT-1), ushered in a modern therapeutic regimen that provided hope, for the first time, to millions of patients suffering from and dying of heart failure. 1 Entry criteria for the trial were simple and confined to men with " impaired cardiac function and reduced exercise tolerance. " The primary end point was all...

Heart failure is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. End stage disease often requires heart transplantation, which is hampered by donor organ shortage. Tissue engineering represents a promising alternative approach for cardiac repair. For the generation of artificial heart muscle tissue several cell types, scaffold materials and bioreactor designs are under investigation. In this revi...

today, congenital heart diseases may be treated without surgery through advances in interventional cardiology. however, complications such as infection and thrombus formation may develop due to foreign materials used during these procedures. surgical intervention may be required for the removal of the device utilized for the procedure. in this case report, we present the surgical treatment of a...

BACKGROUND Predictors of in-hospital mortality (IHM) following non-cardiac surgery in South African (SA) patients are not well described. OBJECTIVE To determine the association between patient comorbidity and IHM in a cohort of SA non-cardiac surgery patients. METHODS Data related to comorbidity and IHM for 3,727 patients aged ≥45 years were obtained from a large administrative database at ...