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Journal and News Scan
December 10, 2015
Submitted by: J. Rafael Sadaba
The study was a single-arm, multicentre, prospective study enrolling 31 high-risk adult individuals with symptomatic mitral regurgitation despite optimal medical therapy from five institutions in Europe. The primary efficacy endpoints included: (a) Technical success rate of the device implantation; (b) Technical feasibility of Cardioband adjustment; and (c) Cardioband ability to reduce the annular septolateral dimension and MR. The technical success rate of implantation was 93.6%. Cardioband adjustment was successful in 29 of 31 subjects. At 30 days, 22 of 25 patients had MR ≤2+. Procedural mortality was zero and in-hospital mortality was 6.5%. The authors conclude that the initial experience with the Cardioband system shows that transfemoral implantation of a surgical-like direct annuloplasty device is feasible, safe, and effective.
December 8, 2015
Submitted by: Joel Dunning
This is an edition of the annals of Cardiothoracic Surgery dedicated to minimally invasive cardiothoracic surgery. It contains many approaches for thymectomy and mediastinal masses including VATS, uniportal VATS, subxiphoid approaches and robotic approaches.
December 3, 2015
Submitted by: Aamir Shah
Patients with bicuspid aortic valves have a significantly increased incidence of aortic complications including type A aortic dissection. The authors studied 1181 patients with bicuspid aortic valves and sinus of valsalva or ascending aortic aneurysms with diameter greater than or equal to 4.7 cm on CT scan or MRI. The prevalence of type A dissection identified by initial imaging or detected at operation or during surveillance follow up was 5.3%. The probability of surgical intervention for aortic expansion or dissection among patients undergoing surveillance was 16% at 1 year and 50% at 6 years follow up. The authors found the cross-sectional area of the ascending aorta or sinuses of Valsalva to height ratio to be the best predictor of type A dissection, and recommend aortic replacement in patients with bicuspid aortic valves and aortic diameter greater than 5 cm or cross sectional area to height ratio greater than 10 cm2/m.
November 30, 2015
Submitted by: Joel Dunning
This is an interesting document adding the proposals for the next edition of lung cancer staging. the changes are going to be quite significant :
Recommended changes are as follows: to subclassify T1 into T1a (≤1 cm), T1b (>1 to ≤2 cm), and T1c (>2 to ≤3 cm); to subclassify T2 into T2a (>3 to ≤4 cm) and T2b (>4 to ≤5 cm); to reclassify tumors greater than 5 to less than or equal to 7 cm as T3; to reclassify tumors greater than 7 cm as T4; to group involvement of main bronchus as T2 regardless of distance from carina; to group partial and total atelectasis/pneumonitis as T2; to reclassify diaphragm invasion as T4; and to delete mediastinal pleura invasion as a T descriptor.
November 30, 2015
Submitted by: Joel Dunning
This is an expert commentary on the state of the art in this field together with an audio commentary also available on this link
November 25, 2015
Submitted by: CTSNet Staff
This article reports on the long-term (up to 15 year) survival of patients who participated in the COURAGE trial.
November 24, 2015
Submitted by: Joel Dunning
A nice short demonstration from Michael Mack of his cannulation technique for minimally invasive AVR with femoral vein cannulation
November 24, 2015
Submitted by: Joel Dunning
This is an interesting video documenting radiotracer labelld lung nodule incision of a small 10mm right upper lobe nodule that is really quite deep
November 23, 2015
Submitted by: CTSNet Staff
The authors report on TAVI implantation through the brachiocephalic artery in patients without ideal femoral access. This approach is safe and feasible. The distance between access point and implant site is short, facilitating catheter manipulation and implantation itself.
November 23, 2015
Submitted by: CTSNet Staff
Results of the Dutch National Paediatric HTx Programme are presented. Eighteen of 43 eligible patients underwent implantation of a ventricular assist device. The authors provide a detailed description of the outcomes.