Journal and News Scan

Lung transplantation in COVID-19 patients with end-stage lung disease has proven to improve quality of life and be a viable treatment option. This study confirmed that by comparing a group of COVID-associated transplant patients with a group of patients needing transplants for other reasons. Although they had longer hospital stays, the COVID-related cases had a similar one-year survival rate to the other cohort.

Thoracic oncology patients are a high-risk group for venous thromboembolism (VTE). The ESTS and AATS panel reviewed the evidence using the GRADE approach and made twenty-four recommendations for VTE prophylaxis, focusing on pharmacological and mechanical methods. The certainty surrounding the evidence for VTE prevention in thoracic surgery was generally low. Conditional recommendations were made concerning parenteral anticoagulation, extended prophylaxis and VTE screening. The need for further research on preoperative thromboprophylaxis and risk stratification in extended prophylaxis was identified.

This population-based study used data to develop clinical models that predict the length of intensive care unit (ICU) stay after cardiac surgery. These updated models, based on certain risk factors that tend to lengthen time in the ICU, predicted length of stay within two days in the validation cohort.

Surgical mitral valve repair is the gold standard treatment for mitral regurgitation due to degenerative disease. Repair is performed on the arrested heart, meaning that assessments of success can only be made after removal of cardiopulmonary bypass. The saline test remains an integral part of repair, however, its hemodynamics have not been evaluated. The authors present a simple technique to quantify the saline test. The authors note that the saline test may be less informative in cases where the maximum left ventricle diastolic pressure is low.