The authors retrospectively reviewed the postoperative TEEs on patients undergoing DCCV within 30 days after cardiac surgery that included LAA closure (n=93 patients). The presence of a residual communication between the LAA and the left atrium was 37% overall.
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Electrophysiology/arrhythmia
October 14, 2015
August 30, 2015
Multicenter trial examining the efficacy of a miniaturized and fully self-contained leadless pacemaker percutaneously implanted into the right ventricle. The leadless pacemaker met prespecified pacing and sensing requirements with 1 in 15 patients experiencing adverse device related events.
July 28, 2015
This article offers a much needed comprehensive overview of temporary pacing strategies specific to cardiac surgical patients.
July 23, 2015
Authors describe a technique allowing excellent exposure of the mitral valve while more safely performing cut-and-sew Cox-Maze III.
June 24, 2015
Patients with afib undergoing elective surgery or invasive procedure who were on coumadin were randomized to bridging with low molecular weight heparin or placebo preoperatively. The incidence of arterial thromboembolism was .03% in the bridge group and 0.4% in the placebo group, demonstrating non-inferiority of placebo. The bleeding complication r
June 14, 2015
This Swedish study was a retrospective review over a 20-year time period that compared survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest between those receiving bystander CPR prior to EMS arrival and those not receiving such. CPR before the arrival of EMS was associated with an increased 30-d survival rate (odds ratio 2.15; 95% CI 1.88-2.45).
May 17, 2015
The question of whether digoxin increases the risk of death in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) or congestive heart failure (CHF) continues to be a matter of debate. The authors of this manuscript attempt to find an answer with a meta-analysis and systematic review of the literature.
May 10, 2015
Patients with persisent or long-standing atrial fibrillation requiring mitral valve surgery were randomized to either surgical ablation or no ablation. Surgical ablation patients were further randomized to pulmonary vein isolation or biatrial MAZE. More surgical ablation patients were free from atrial fibrillation than control.
April 12, 2015
In this manuscript the authors describe their findings in a meta-analysis of 12 randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials involving 2,980 patients undergoing isolated CABG. They found that statin therapy, particularly atorvastatin, initiated before CABG, was associated with a 58% reduction in the risk of postoperative AF.
April 8, 2015
This thought provoking article by Drew et al., utilized state-of-the art monitoring technology to document the problem of "alarm fatigue" by recording an astounding number of alarm events; 2,558,760 unique alarms were triggered for 461 patients over a 31-day period.