Mitral valve-in-valve implantation during pregnancy.

A 32-year-old, 11-week pregnant African woman with known rheumatic heart disease presented to the emergency department with worsening shortness of breath on exertion. She had undergone a double bioprosthetic valve replacement and left atrial appendage resection 8 years prior for severe mitral stenosis, moderate mitral regurgitation and moderate aortic regurgitation. A transo-oesophageal echocardiography at this presentation confirmed a morphologically calcified and stenosed mitral bioprosthesis, with moderate stenosis of her aortic bioprosthesis. Her multidisciplinary team, including cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons and obstetricians, came to a consensus decision to proceed with a transseptal transcatheter valve implantation within the mitral valve prosthesis (valve-in-valve implantation). Transthoracic echocardiography performed 2 months post procedure showed satisfactory mitral valve gradients and at 30 weeks' gestation, she successfully delivered her fifth child. 2 years later, the valve in valve complex is still functioning well.

Emergency salpingectomy for ruptured ectopic pregnancy in patient with Melnick-Needles syndrome: a rare otopalatodigital syndrome.

Melnick-Needles syndrome (M-NS) is a rare genetic disorder which primarily affects skeletal developments. M-NS may also affect the cardiorespiratory and renal systems. A 35 kg patient presented complaining of abdominal pain. Following a positive pregnancy test and ultrasound examination, she was diagnosed with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. She had a significant background history of M-NS, obstructive sleep apnoea (with narrow gauge tracheostomy in situ), obstructive lung disease and scoliosis. She received fluid resuscitation, and the case was managed using an open salpingectomy and clot evacuation under combined spinal/epidural anaesthesia. Anticipated difficulty in securing a definitive airway was pivotal to choosing a regional anaesthetic technique. The operation was successful and the patient recovered well. This was a unique surgical and anaesthetic challenge due to abnormal facial, spinal and abdominal morphology compounded by the time-critical emergency nature of the case. Individually tailored perioperative management is frequently required for patients with rare syndromes.

Excellent postoperative analgesia with the addition of hyaluronidase to lignocaine for subcostal TAP block used in conjunction with systemic analgesia for laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

Subcostal transversus abdominis plane (TAP) blocks provide good postoperative analgesia for laparoscopic cholecystectomies. We hypothesised that adding hyaluronidase may improve the efficacy of this technique by increasing spread of the local anaesthetic (LA). In this case, we performed a bilateral ultrasound-guided subcostal TAP block using lignocaine (40 mL 1%) with hyaluronidase (75 IU/mL) for postoperative analgesia following elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy. It was used in combination with intraoperative morphine, diclofenac and paracetamol. Regular paracetamol was administered postoperatively. We monitored serial serum lignocaine levels and recorded the patient's visual analogue scale (VAS) pain scores postoperatively. We found that the patient experienced excellent analgesia throughout the postoperative period and that the serum lignocaine levels did not exceed the therapeutic range.