BACKGROUND Less invasive cardiac surgery is widely adopted nowadays. Upper or lower partial sternotomy is an approach for less invasive cardiac surgery. We report results of less invasive cardiac surgery via partial sternotomy. METHODS From August 1, 2009 to September 30, 2010, 35 patients underwent cardiac surgery via upper or lower partial sternotomy. The preoperative characteristics, opera...

A 71-yr-old man presented to our emergency department, with 12 hr of chest pain and dyspnea. A computed tomography scan demonstrated the presence of a 7.4 cm ascending aortic aneurysm, type A aortic dissection, in the distal ascending aorta extending into brachiocephalic and right common carotid arteries. A transthoracic echocardiogram showed type A dissection, with intimal flap prolapsing thro...

This article investigates the relationships between heart valve closure timing intervals and left ventricular systolic blood pressure (LVSBP). For this investigation, the cardiopulmonary system is modeled as an analog circuit, including heart chambers, the distal and proximal aorta, distal and proximal systemic arteries/veins, systemic capillaries, the vena cava, the distal and proximal pulmona...

In patients suffering with chronic valvular disease who are diagnosed as having mitral stenosis, there are found a few who have an associated tricuspid stenosis. The diagnosis of this combination of lesions is difficult. The unique opportunity to study the hemodynamics of "pure" tricuspid stenosis was presented when a patient, originally diagnosed as mitral stenosis, had in fact both lesions, a...

background: about half of all patients who undergo mitral valve surgery suffer from atrial fibrillation (af). cox described the surgical cut-and-sew maze procedure, which is an effective surgical method but has some complications. this study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of a substitution method of radiofrequency ablation (rfa) for patients undergoing mitral valve surgery with af. metho...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to identify echocardiographic hemodynamic and morphometric factors that would predict which infants with critical aortic stenosis could undergo relief of left ventricular outflow obstruction as opposed to the Norwood procedure. BACKGROUND Echocardiographic predictors of survival in infants with critical aortic stenosis after two-ventricle repair have b...

Among 861 infants and children with coarctation of the aorta examined between 1950 and 1973, inclusive, 18 (2.1%) also had congenital mitral regurgitation (MR). Resection of the coarctation of the aorta was performed in 16 of these 18 patients (89%). There were three operative deaths early in the series, giving a total mortality rate of 18% since 1950. Over the past decade, mortality in this gr...

One of the most important fluid phenomena observed in the left ventricle during diastole is the presence of vortex rings that develop with a strong jet entering through the mitral valve. The present study is focused on the rapid filling phase of diastole, during which the left ventricle expands and receives blood through the fully open mitral valve. The atrioventricular system during the rapid ...

This paper is based largely on personal observations of normal and stenosed mitral valves. Some aspects that are new and some that are not in keeping with present-day concepts will be discussed. The mitral valve is a unit that consists of a so-called fibrous "ring," of two unequal cusps, of two sets of papillary muscles, and of numerous chorde tendinee. When two triangular leaflets are attached...