Pulmonary hypertension alters natural history of anomalous left coronary artery.

A girl who was diagnosed at 8 months old with anomalous left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery and was subsequently lost to follow-up, presented at the age of 11 years with congestive heart failure and severe mitral regurgitation with supra-systemic pulmonary artery pressure. With progressive mitral regurgitation, coronary steal is reduced by the rising pulmonary artery pressure, and patients present late with severe valvular cardiomyopathy.

In search of a pediatric cardiac surgeon's 'Holy Grail': the ideal pulmonary conduit.

The limited lifespan of all currently available conduits leads to repeat operations and interventional procedures in many children. Each reoperation entails considerable risk to life, expenditure and compromised quality of life as the conduit degenerates. The ideal conduit should be available freely, inexpensive, require no anticoagulation, be resistant to infection, free from thromboembolism, have no gradients or regurgitation and have unlimited durability. This review explores various options as surgeons and researchers endeavor to develop the ideal conduit--which will fulfill all of the above-mentioned criteria. Various currently available conduits are analyzed. Special emphasis is given to tissue-engineered valves and percutaneous valve implantations.

Late entrapment of ball and cage valve in mitral position.

A 32-year-old female underwent mitral valve replacement with total chordal preservation (Miki's technique) using 26 mm (1M) Starr-Edward prosthesis (SEP) in 1988. The patient was in NYHA class-I until 2001. She progressed to NYHA class-III with paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnoea. Transthoracic echocardiogram showed increased prosthetic valve gradient, and cardiac catheterization confirmed the findings. Intraoperatively, the poppet movement in the cage was found to be restricted due to the preserved subvalvular apparatus entrapping the poppet inside the prosthetic valve cage.

Clinical profile and surgical outcome for pulmonary aspergilloma: a single center experience.

BACKGROUND: This retrospective study was designed to study the clinical profile, indications, postoperative complications and long-term outcome of pulmonary aspergilloma operated in our institute. METHODS: From 1985 to 2003, 60 patients underwent surgery for pulmonary aspergilloma at Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology. RESULTS: The group consisted of 36 male patients and 24 female patients with a mean age of 42.7 +/- 11.8 years. The most common indication for surgery was hemoptysis (93.3%). The common underlying lung diseases were tuberculosis (45%), bronchiectasis (28.3%), and lung abscess (11.6%). Fourteen patients (23%) had simple aspergilloma (SA) and 46 (77%) had complex aspergilloma (CA). The procedures performed were lobectomy (n = 55), pneumonectomy (n = 2), segmental resection (n = 2), and cavernoplasty (n = 2). One patient underwent bilateral lobectomy at 14 months interval. The operative mortality was 4.3% and 0% in CA and SA, respectively (p = 1.0). Major complications occurred in 26.1% patients of CA, whereas none occurred in SA (p = 0.052). The complications included bleeding (n = 2), prolonged air leak (n = 4), empyema (n = 4), repeated pneumothorax (n = 1), and wound dehiscence (n = 1). Three patients needed thoracoplasty. The mean follow-up period was 40 +/- 24 months. The actuarial survival at 10 years was 78% and 92% for CA and SA, respectively. There was no recurrence of disease or hemoptysis. CONCLUSIONS: Surgical resection of pulmonary aspergilloma prevents recurrence of hemoptysis. Complex aspergilloma resection was associated with low mortality but significant morbidity, whereas SA had no associated early mortality and morbidity. Long-term outcome is good for SA and satisfactory for CA.