Pulmonary Artery Sling with Tracheal Stenosis Combined with A Large Ventricular Septal Defect in A Two-Month-Old Boy: A Case Report.

Pulmonary artery sling (PAS) is a rare congenital cardiovascular abnormality. In typical PAS patients, the left pulmonary artery (LPA) arises from the right pulmonary artery and passes between the trachea and esophagus, which possibly causes tracheal stenosis and some respiratory symptoms. PAS typically associates with other cardiovascular anomalies, which may cause difficulties to the treatment of patients. This report described a rare case of a two-month-old boy with PAS, VSD, and tracheal stenosis simultaneously and underwent procedures without tracheoplasty.

The Relationship between Blood Groups and Aortic Dissection.

BACKGROUND: Plenty of diseases have been found having associations with blood types, especially cardiovascular diseases. The purpose of this study was to clarify whether there is a relationship between blood groups and acute aortic dissection. We also further studied the distribution of blood groups in different types of acute aortic dissection. METHODS: A total of 291 patients diagnosed with acute aortic dissection from 2011 to 2018 were enrolled and analyzed retrospectively in this study. The control group consisted of 582 patients who received plastic surgery at West China hospital from 2011 to 2018. First, we analyzed the distribution of blood groups between the study group and the control group, including the ABO, Rh, O and non-O groups. Then, we further divided the study group into two groups by the type of acute aortic dissection to determine if there was difference in blood groups between the two types of acute aortic dissection. RESULTS: The analysis of the distribution of ABO blood groups (p = 0.302) and Rh blood groups (p = 0.502) did not reveal statistically significant differences. There were no statistically significant differences in the distributions of ABO blood groups and Rh blood groups in different types of acute aortic dissection. CONCLUSIONS: Our study did not prove the incidence of acute aortic dissection, or the type of acute aortic dissection had a relationship with common blood groups.

Anomalous Right Coronary Artery Arising from the Pulmonary Artery with Associated Enlargement of the Left Coronary Artery: A Case Report.

An anomalous right coronary artery arising from the pulmonary artery (ARCAPA) is among the least common form of congenital coronary anomalies, accounted for the incidence of only 0.002% in the general population. Most ARCAPA patients have no symptoms but may develop myocardial ischemia. Surgical correction of the anomaly is recommended to prevent subsequent fatal outcomes. Here, we reported a case of a 2-year-old female child initially hospitalized for diarrhea, but later diagnosed with an ARCAPA through echocardiogram and computed tomography. Surgical reimplantation of the right coronary artery from the pulmonary artery to the ascending aorta was performed. The patient recovered well from the surgery with no postoperative complications. In the follow-up assessments, normal coronary function and myocardial effusion were demonstrated.

Mussel-inspired antimicrobial gelatin/chitosan tissue adhesive rapidly activated in situ by H2O2/ascorbic acid for infected wound closure.

The development of minimally invasive surgery has created a demand for ideal medical adhesives exhibiting biocompatibility, biodegradability, antimicrobial activity, and strong adhesion to tissues in wet environments. However, as clinically approved surgical tissue glues suffer from poor adhesion activation, limited adhesion strength, and toxicity, novel tissue glues are highly sought after. Herein, a mussel-inspired injectable hydrogel was prepared from catechol- and methacrylate-modified chitosan/gelatin and shown to exhibit biocompatibility, inherent antimicrobial activity, and good adhesion to wet tissues. Moreover, as this gel could be applied onto tissue surfaces and cured in situ within seconds of body contact by a biocompatible and multifunctional redox initiator (H2O2-ascorbic acid), it was concluded to be a promising surgical sealant and wound dressing (even for infected wounds) accelerating wound healing.

Tetralogy of Fallot with Double Aortic Arch in an 8-Month-Old Girl: A Rare Association.

Double aortic arch (DAA) is an extremely rare congenital anomaly that can be divided into right dominant, left dominant, and balanced DAA according to the relative size of the two arches. The incidence of balanced DAA is only 5% among double arch anomalies. DAA is symptomatic only when it produces symptoms secondary to compression of the trachea or esophagus. DAA is rarely associated with other congenital heart diseases. In this report, we present a rare case of asymptomatic DAA combined with Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) in an 8-month-old girl.

Safe Surgical Retrieval of Endothelialized Ventricular Septal Defect Closure Device.

Surgical retrieval of endothelialized ventricular septal defect closure devices is associated with significant morbidity. We herein present a technique for the safe removal of such devices (Shanghai Shape Memory Alloy, China) from the heart.

[Effects of Restrictive Transfusion on the Outcome of Mitral Valve Replacement].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate effects of restrictive transfusion on the outcome of mitral valve replacement. METHODS: We selected 120 continuous patients of mitral valve replacement from June 2011 to June 2016. Based on the different blood transfusion strategy,the patients were divided into two groups: liberal blood transfusion group and restrictive blood transfusion strategy group. The blood routine test,liver and kidney function,coagulation function,full examination before blood transfusion,blood types,echocardiography and so on were examined when the patients were admitted to hospital,also the clinical data of perioperative patients were recorded,and blood transfusion volume,major complication and mortality were compared between the two groups. RESULTS: The transfusion volume of red blood cells decreased from (3.2±1.1) to (1.8±1.5) U with restrictive transfusion,the difference was statistically significant (P=0.01),while plasma volume increased from (325.7±96.5) mL to (385.2±86.2) mL (P=0.04). There were differences in major complications between the two groups (39.2% vs. 31.7%,P=0.04),especially for respiratory-related complications such as the proportion of using ventilator >24 h (P=0.03),total time using ventilator (P=0.03),lung infection rate (P=0.04). The restrictive transfusion group had better outcome with less cost of hospitalization. The mortality was not different (P>0.05). CONCLUSION: Restrictive transfusion strategy reduces the incidence of major complications in patients of mitral valve replacement with less cost.

Loss-tolerant measurement-device-independent quantum private queries.

Quantum private queries (QPQ) is an important cryptography protocol aiming to protect both the user's and database's privacy when the database is queried privately. Recently, a variety of practical QPQ protocols based on quantum key distribution (QKD) have been proposed. However, for QKD-based QPQ the user's imperfect detectors can be subjected to some detector- side-channel attacks launched by the dishonest owner of the database. Here, we present a simple example that shows how the detector-blinding attack can damage the security of QKD-based QPQ completely. To remove all the known and unknown detector side channels, we propose a solution of measurement-device-independent QPQ (MDI-QPQ) with single- photon sources. The security of the proposed protocol has been analyzed under some typical attacks. Moreover, we prove that its security is completely loss independent. The results show that practical QPQ will remain the same degree of privacy as before even with seriously uncharacterized detectors.

Randomness determines practical security of BB84 quantum key distribution.

Unconditional security of the BB84 quantum key distribution protocol has been proved by exploiting the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics, but the practical quantum key distribution system maybe hacked by considering the imperfect state preparation and measurement respectively. Until now, different attacking schemes have been proposed by utilizing imperfect devices, but the general security analysis model against all of the practical attacking schemes has not been proposed. Here, we demonstrate that the general practical attacking schemes can be divided into the Trojan horse attack, strong randomness attack and weak randomness attack respectively. We prove security of BB84 protocol under randomness attacking models, and these results can be applied to guarantee the security of the practical quantum key distribution system.

Outcomes of tricuspid annuloplasty with and without prosthetic rings: a retrospective follow-up study.

BACKGROUND: The efficacies of tricuspid valve repair, risk factors for treatment failure and postoperative quality of life have not been thoroughly evaluated in patients with tricuspid insufficiency associated with rheumatic heart disease (RHD). We therefore reviewed our experience with ring and non-ring tricuspid annuloplasty for the treatment of functional tricuspid insufficiency (TI) in RHD. METHODS: This retrospective, follow-up study involved 74 RHD patients who underwent either non-ring annuloplasty (De Vega procedure; 34 patients, 45.95 %) or ring annuloplasty (40 patients, 54.05 %) along with concurrent mitral or/and aortic valve replacement. Operation time, cardiopulmonary bypass time, aortic clamping time, intensive care unit stay and extubation time were recorded. Echocardiographic findings and Short Form (SF)-36 scores were compared between the two groups. RESULTS: In hospital mortality and complications were similar in the two study groups (P = 0.6755). At 1 week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and even longer after the operation, the Kaplan-Meier curve of freedom from mild and above recurrent TI showed significantly better efficacy in the ring annuloplasty group than the De Vega procedure group (log rank P = 0.0377). Risk factors for recurrent TI included high pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) and non-ring annuloplasty (PASP: hazard ratio = 1.52; non-ring: hazard ratio = 1.42). The mental component summary score at 1 year after the operation did not significantly differ between the two groups (P = 0.6446), but the physical component summary score was significantly better in the ring annuloplasty group (P = 0.0037). CONCLUSION: Compared with non-ring annuloplasty, ring annuloplasty was associated with improved survival, decreased TI recurrence and higher quality of life in RHD patients undergoing tricuspid valve repair combined with mitral and/or aortic valve replacement.

[Study on levels of angiotensin converting enzyme and C-reactive protein in peripheral blood of mitral valve replacement preoperative patients with atrial fibrillation].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the levels of angiotensin converting enzyme and C-reactive protein in the peripheral blood of mitral valve replacement preoperative patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). METHODS: 24 atrial fibrillation patients, who were hospitalized for mitral valve replacement surgery, as study group (AF group) and 23 sinus rhythm patients as control group (SR group) were included in this study. The angiotensin converting enzyme and C-reactive protein in peripheral blood were quantified and compared in an attempt to find out whether the significant difference existed between the AF and SR groups. All patients undertook ultrasonic cardiography before operation. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in C-reactive protein between two groups (P > 0.05). The quantity of angiotensin converting enzyme in patients with AF was higher than that in patients with SR, which was statistically significant (P < 0.05). And also the left atrial dimension had a linear correlation with angiotensin converting enzyme. The obvious relation between angiotensin converting enzyme and left atrial dimension was seen in AF patients who need mitral valve replacement. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that the increase of the quantity of angiotensin converting enzyme in peripheral blood has relationship with atrial fibrillation of patients who need mitral valve replacement, and more research on the relations between AF and angiotensin converting enzyme would be needed.