Journal and News Scan

Researchers continue to report findings from the first genetically modified pig heart transplant into a human ten months after the surgery. Their latest study found unexpected electrocardiogram results in the patient, which the authors say did not contribute to heart failure. These results provide a first look into the novel field of xenotransplantation. Read the original study at this link.

Pirruccello and associates from Massachusetts General Hospital developed a prediction model for ascending aortic diameter in a cohort of 30,018 asymptomatic individuals based on eleven variables: age (years), gender, body mass index (kg/m2), heart rate (bpm), systolic and diastolic blood pressure (mm Hg), height (cm), weight (kg), and the presence or absence of a diagnosis of diabetes, hypertension, or hyperlipidemia.  The area under the receiver operator characteristic curve ranged from 0.77 to 0.81 for identifying individuals with an ascending aortic diameter 4 cm or greater in validation cohorts. This is an important step in identifying early signs of ascending thoracic aortic disease, a common cause of sudden death in the U.S.

According to results of the STRESS trial, infants undergoing heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass did not have a lower chance of a bad outcome when administered with the steroid methylprednisolone, compared to the placebo. This trial was part of an initiative to develop a more reliable method of conducting clinical trials involving pediatric heart surgery patients.

This study assessed the use of regional analgesia in the reduction of postoperative opioid use in patients undergoing a sternotomy. Researchers used factors such as amount of opioids used, pain scores, and recovery time to determine if the method was effective. In the first seventy-two hours postoperatively, recovery checkpoints were similar between the two groups, and the study determined that regional analgesia did not reduce the amount of opioids administered in this short postoperative period.