One of the most common health problems are diseases of the cardiovascular system with a great bulk of disease burden; while a considerable number of cardiac patients undergo cardiac surgery; cardiac surgical procedures with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) are nowadays among the top list of surgical procedures. More than half of a century has passed since the introduction of total cardiopulmonary b...

The following articles are being highlighted as part of Circulation’s Topic Review series. This series will summarize the most important manuscripts, as selected by the editors, published in Circulation and the Circulation subspecialty journals. The studies included in this article represent the most read manuscripts published on the topic of cardiovascular surgery and transplantation in 2009 a...

In 2000, the responsibility for selecting a DRG variant for use in Germany was assigned to a body comprising representatives of hospitals and insurers called the Self-Administration Board (or Board in this paper). To help the Board, we applied cardiac surgery data from 18 German hospitals to eight different DRG variants. The error caused by bad coding quality could be minimized this way, since ...

INTRODUCTION — Prior to the development of modern cardiovascular surgery, most cases of mediastinitis arose from either esophageal perforation or from contiguous spread of odontogenic or retropharyngeal infections. Rarely, primary infections of the mediastinum developed as a result of penetrating trauma or hematogenous spread of infection. However, in modern practice, most cases of mediastiniti...

Computer graphics (CG) and virtual reality (VR) are increasing their possibility in the medical field. Most of current clinical applications for diagnosis or surgical planning consist of the developed CG and VR techniques. On the other hand, surgeons make great efforts in learning surgical procedures and training of their skills. Their total loads are increasing due to the development of new su...

Interventional cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (iCMR) refers to catheter-based therapeutic procedures using MRI rather than conventional radiographic guidance. iCMR promises to further blur the distinction between medical and surgical therapeutics by permitting surgical-quality “exposure” in minimally invasive procedures. Catheter-based procedures conducted without x-rays may be usefu...

One of the most common health problems are diseases of the cardiovascular system with a great bulk of disease burden; while a considerable number of cardiac patients undergo cardiac surgery; cardiac surgical procedures with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) are nowadays among the top list of surgical procedures. More than half of a century has passed since the introduction of total cardiopulmonary b...