Considerations from U-40 for the Special Session of the Annual Meeting on the New Japanese Board of Cardiovascular Surgery / 日本心臓血管外科学会雑誌

With the official launch of the new Japanese board of cardiovascular surgery, there are various changes compared to the old system, such as the choice of training period. We conducted a questionnaire survey to find out how U-40 members perceive and understand the new system. Based on the results of the survey, we discussed and presented the current situation and prospects of the new system at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Cardiovascular Surgery.

U-40 Column Advanced Lecture Course / 日本心臓血管外科学会雑誌

The importance of off the job training in surgical education are widely recognized. The Japanese Board of Cardiovascular Surgery has required a board candidate to do at least 30 hours of off the job training from 2017. U-40 Basic Lecture Course are held annually for young cardiovascular surgeon to learn about basic surgical skills. U-40 Advanced Lecture Course was started to provide opportunity to have more advanced hands-on lecture for young cardiovascular surgeon. However, after the COVID-19 pandemic, the opportunity to hold hands-on seminars are highly limited. In such circumstances, we held a hybrid hands-on seminar. We report details about the hybrid hands-on seminar.

A Questionnaire Survey on Shift and On-Call System Targeting Under-Forty Cardiovascular Surgeons No.3 / 日本心臓血管外科学会雑誌

We conducted a questionnaire survey on shift and on-call system targeting under-forty cardiovascular surgeons and obtained responses from 35 surgeons. We report the questionnaire results.

Role of the Japanese Board of Cardiovascular Surgery for Young Surgeons No.1 / 日本心臓血管外科学会雑誌

Japanese board of cardiovascular surgery is changing to new system. To discuss about future education, the cardiovascular surgeons should know more about the new system. The present article demonstrated the questionnaire survey about the board, and evaluated its outcome. This is the first article of the column series about the board. We hope the article is useful information for the young surgeons, and the surgeons will discuss about better environment for training in new era.

A Questionnaire Survey on the Working Environment, the Degree of Satisfaction, and the Education Methods Targeting Under-Forty Cardiovascular Surgeons No.10 / 日本心臓血管外科学会雑誌

We surveyed the working environment, the degree of satisfaction and the educational methods targeting under forty congenital cardiac surgeons in Japan. We herein report the results of this survey. Summary of this work was presented at the 2018 CHSS Japan Congress, Tokyo, Japan.

Surgical Treatment for the Annulo-Aortic Ectasia Concomitant with Membranous Ventricular Septal Aneurysm / 日本心臓血管外科学会雑誌

A 60-year-old man complained of palpitation due to transitory atrial fibrillation. The annulo-aortic ectasia was recognized, and was getting enlarged to 52 mm. After an additional examination, membranous ventricular septal aneurysm was revealed. There was no evidence of thrombus, shunt, or infection in the membranous ventricular septal aneurysm. The valve-sparing aortic root replacement (reimplantation) and the patch-closure of the membranous ventricular septal aneurysm were performed. Stabilizing the subannular tissue by a Dacron patch made the reimplantation technique feasible. To secure a subannular suture line, 3 mattress stitches were passed inside-out through the Dacron patch, the fibrous rim of the membranous septum and the prosthetic graft again. He was discharged without any complication 12 days after the operation.

A Questionnaire Survey on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Targeting Under-Forty Cardiovascular Surgeons No.8 / 日本心臓血管外科学会雑誌

Basic procedures that cardiovascular surgeons routinely perform are rarely discussed, despite the great variability among facilities. We conducted a questionnaire survey on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) targeting under-forty cardiovascular surgeons and obtained responses from 53 surgeons. We report the questionnaire results.

Bilateral Cochlear Implantation for Children in Nagasaki, Japan

OBJECTIVES: The number of patients with bilateral cochlear implant (CI) has gradually increased as patients and/or parents recognize its effectiveness. The purpose of this report is to evaluate the efficacy of 29 bilateral CI out of 169 pediatric CI users, who received auditory-verbal/oral habilitation at our hearing center. METHODS: We evaluated the audiological abilities 29 Japanese children with bilateral CIs including wearing threshold, word recognition score, speech discrimination score at 1 m from front speaker (SP), 1 m from second CI side SP, speech discrimination score under the noise (S/N ratio=80 dB sound pressure level [SPL]/70 dB SPL, 10 dB) at 1 m from front SP, word recognition score under the noise (S/N ratio=80 dB SPL/70 dB SPL, 10 dB) at 1 m from front SP. RESULTS: Binaural hearing using bilateral CI is better than first CI in all speech understanding tests. Especially, there were significant differences between the results of first CI and bilateral CI on SDS at 70 dB SPL (P=0.02), SDS at 1 m from second CI side SP at 60 dB SPL (P=0.02), word recognition score (WRS) at 1 m from second CI side SP at 60 dB SPL (P=0.02), speech discrimination score (SDS) at 1 m from front SP under the noise (S/N=80/70; P=0.01) and WRS at 1 m from front SP under the noise (S/N=80/70; P=0.002). At every age, a second CI is very effective. However, the results of under 9 years old were better than of over 9 years old on the mean SDS under the noise (S/N=80/70) on second CI (P=0.04). About use of a hearing aid (HA) in their opposite side of first CI, on the WRS and SDS under the noise, there were significant differences between the group of over 3 years and the group of under 10 months of HA non user before second CI. CONCLUSION: These results may show important binaural effectiveness such as binaural summation and head shadow effect. Bilateral CI is very useful medical intervention for many children with severe-to-profound hearing loss in Japan as well as elsewhere.

What Factors Are Associated with Good Performance in Children with Cochlear Implants? From the Outcome of Various Language Development Tests, Research on Sensory and Communicative Disorders Project in Japan: Nagasaki Experience

OBJECTIVES: We conducted multi-directional language development tests as a part of the Research on Sensory and Communicative Disorders (RSVD) in Japan. This report discusses findings as well as factors that led to better results in children with severe-profound hearing loss. METHODS: We evaluated multiple language development tests in 33 Japanese children with cochlear implants (32 patients) and hearing aid (1 patient), including 1) Test for question and answer interaction development, 2) Word fluency test, 3) Japanese version of the Peabody picture vocabulary test-revised, 4) The standardized comprehension test of abstract words, 5) The screening test of reading and writing for Japanese primary school children, 6) The syntactic processing test of aphasia, 7) Criterion-referenced testing (CRT) for Japanese language and mathematics, 8) Pervasive development disorders ASJ rating scales, and 9) Raven's colored progressive matrices. Furthermore, we investigated the factors believed to account for the better performances in these tests. The first group, group A, consisted of 14 children with higher scores in all tests than the national average for children with hearing difficulty. The second group, group B, included 19 children that scored below the national average in any of the tests. RESULTS: Overall, the results show that 76.2% of the scores obtained by the children in these tests exceeded the national average scores of children with hearing difficulty. The children who finished above average on all tests had undergone a longer period of regular habilitation in our rehabilitation center, had their implants earlier in life, were exposed to more auditory verbal/oral communication in their education at affiliated institutions, and were more likely to have been integrated in a regular kindergarten before moving on to elementary school. CONCLUSION: In this study, we suggest that taking the above four factors into consideration will have an affect on the language development of children with severe-profound hearing loss.