Experiments in dogs showed that the high levels of cellular aggregation and trauma caused by cariodtomy suction can be considerably reduced by the avoidance of air aspiration. A hypothesis is proposed to explain this on the basis of shear stresses in the inlet cannula. Roller pump suction was also found to be slightly more traumatic than vaccum suction, but contact of the blood with the pericar...

Liposarcomas are extremely rare in the mediastinum. They may achieve considerable size before causing any symptoms. Mediastinal liposarcomas may invade surrounding structures like the pericardium or the superior vena cava. Complete surgical excision is the optimal treatment in resectable cases. Excision of adjacent structures like the pericardium may be needed if the tumor infiltrates them. We ...

The surgical management of 10 patients with staphylococcal pericarditis is described. Of the 10, seven were children aged 12 years or under. A variety of procedures was used to drain the pericardium at open operation; these included left anterior thoracotomy, left anterolateral thoracotomy, median sternotomy, and the transdiaphragmatic approach to the pericardium. The pathological findings at o...

Left ventricular pressure and segment length were measured in seven conscious chronically instrumented dogs with the pericardium intact and 3-9 days after pericardiectomy. Diastolic pressure-length plots were obtained under control conditions and after acute volume loading followed by sodium nitroprusside infusion. In all dogs with intact pericardium, volume loading displaced the entire diastol...

OBJECTIVE Glutaraldehyde is currently used in bovine pericardium bioprosthesis to improve mechanical and immunogenic properties. Lyophilization is a process that may decrease aldehyde residues in the glutaraldehyde treated pericardium decreasing cytotoxicity and enhancing resistance to calcification. The aim of this study is to evaluate bioprosthetic heart valves calcification in adolescent she...

RATIONALE The Slit-Roundabout (Robo) signaling pathway has pleiotropic functions during Drosophila heart development. However, its role in mammalian heart development is largely unknown. OBJECTIVE To analyze the role of Slit-Robo signaling in the formation of the pericardium and the systemic venous return in the murine heart. METHODS AND RESULTS Expression of genes encoding Robo1 and Robo2 ...

Notwithstanding their wide exploitation, biological prosthetic heart valves are characterized by limited durability (10-15 years). The treatment of biological tissues with chemical crosslinking agents such as glutaraldehyde accounts for the enhanced risk of structural deterioration associated with the early failure of bioprosthetic valves. To overcome the shortcomings of the currently available...

We admitted a maintenance haemodialysis patient with hypotension and weakness. He had undergone cadaveric renal transplantation 19 years earlier. He had lost his kidney due to chronic allograft nephropathy 1 year after transplantation and returned to haemodialysis. He had hypotension, especially remarkable during haemodialysis. He also had hepatitis C but no cirrhosis. The patient denied a prev...

Right ventricular (RV) diastolic dysfunction is an important indicator for the assessment of heart failure. Abnormalities in RV diastolic function underlie many pathologies. However, the underlying mechanisms remain poorly described, because the term is used to describe many variants in diastolic pathophysiology and function. Since the right ventricle is coupled to the pulmonary circulation wit...

The examination of four hearts, with partial or complete obliteration of the pericardial sac by fibrous adhesions, after injection of the coronary arteries with a colloidal suspension of lamp black showed that the extracardiac anastomoses of the coronary arteries were increased owing to the presence of adhesions. In all four instances a particularly rich injection of the parietal pericardium wa...