Left ventricular papillary fibroelastoma: two-dimensional echocardiographic detection and surgical resection.

We report a patient with a papillary fibroelastoma arising from the left ventricular posterior wall. The tumor was detected incidentally during echocardiography undertaken to evaluate aortic stenosis. Possible complication from tumor embolization was avoided by surgical resection during aortic valve replacement.

[Percutaneous dilatation of subaortic stenosis in an adult: a 3-year follow-up]. / Dilatation percutanée d'un rétrécissement aortique sous-valvulaire chez un adulte. Suivi à 3 ans.

Subaortic stenosis is usually diagnosed in the first years of life and treated surgically. The authors report the case of stenosis by a subaortic membrane diagnosed in an adult, treated by percutaneous balloon dilatation with a satisfactory outcome at 3 years.

[Elastic recoil after transluminal coronary angioplasty; implications of clinical and angiographic data]. / Le retour élastique après angioplastie transluminale coronaire; implications respectives des données cliniques et angiographiques.

Secondary elastic recoil after transluminal coronary angioplasty is a constant and immediate phenomenon after successful coronary angioplasty. It was studied by quantitative coronary angiography in 75 consecutive patients undergoing transluminal coronary angioplasty. This procedure was performed on lesions presumed to be responsible for the clinical presentation. The population was divided into 3 groups: stable angina (25 patients), unstable angina (25 patients) and recent post-infarction ischaemic syndromes (25 patients). There were 57 men and 18 women (mean age 59 +/- 11 years) with 31 left anterior descending (LA), 29 right coronary (RC) and 15 left circumflex (Cx) dilatations. The lesions dilated were eccentric in 29 cases and calcified in 37 cases whereas only one thrombus was detected at coronary angiography. The elastic recoil appreciated 10 mn after the last balloon inflation was 0.97 +/- 0.28 mm for the whole population. There was no significant difference between the 3 groups studies (respectively 0.94 +/- 0.24 mm; 0.96 +/- 0.26 mm; 0.99 +/- 0.33 mm). This appeared to be greater than the RC (1.06 +/- 0.30 mm) with respect to the Cx (0.86 +/- 0.23: p < 0.02) or LAD (0.92 +/- 0.25 mm: p < 0.04). Overall, a balloon to vessel diameter ratio > 1 and a lesion length > 10 mm were parameters predicting greater secondary elastic recoil (p < 0.07 and p < 0.001 respectively), whereas the degree of eccentricity only played a role in the post-infarction ischaemic syndromes and calcification only in unstable angina (p < 0.01 and p < 0.001 respectively).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

[Current etiologies of chronic or subacute surgical, pure aortic insufficiencies in adults. Apropos of 91 medico-surgical cases]. / Etiologies actuelles des insuffisances aortiques pures, chroniques ou subaiguës, chirurgicales, de l'adulte. A propos de 91 observations médico-chirurgicales.

Ninety one patients (78 men, mean age 53; 13 women, mean age 50) from a geographically stable and ethnically homogeneous population (Eastern Brittany) underwent surgery for chronic or subacute aortic insufficiency (AI), present alone, between 1986 and 1992 (72 aortic valve replacements, 17 Bentall type (Cabrol modification) operations, 2 ascending aorta reduction plasties combined with aortic valve replacement). Preoperative clinical and paraclinical findings were reviewed in the context of peroperative and pathological findings. Etiologies were as follows in decreasing order of frequency: 1) degenerative: 40 cases (44%): 34 men and 6 women, with aneurysm of the ascending aorta (19 cases); 2) sequelae of infectious endocarditis: 20 cases (22%): 14 men, 6 women; 3) post-inflammatory (rheumatic): 16 cases (18%): 16 men; 4) congenital bicuspid valves: 15 cases (16%): 14 men, 1 woman. Chronic (or subacute) surgical AI is currently an essentially male disorder, presenting mainly during the 6th decade of life, the foremost cause of which, identifiable in the majority of cases on the basis of simple preoperative findings, is degenerative disease of the aorta of or the aortic valve itself.