aortobronchial fistula (abf) is a rare and late complication of cardiac surgery. if untreated, mortality rate is approximately 100% secondary to exsanguinations haemoptysis. early diagnosis and treatment are essential for successful management. open surgical repair is associated with high morbidity and mortality rate, ranging from 25% to 41%. endovascular treatments of abf is a less invasive tr...

Myocardial infarction (MI) is the major contributor of all the cardiac associated causalities. It causes the death of tissues and scar formation in infarcted area, which leads to the cardiac remodeling, reduced heart function and, thus, cardiac failure. In contrast to cardiomyocytes (CM) of zebra fish and neonatal mice, which have ability to regenerate and repair cardiac injury; adult animals l...

Cardiac diseases are the predominant cause of human mortality in the United States and around the world. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that have been shown to modulate a wide range of biological functions under various pathophysiological conditions. miRNAs alter target expression by post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. Numerous studies have implicated specific miRN...

OBJECTIVES Although mitral valve (MV) repair is known to be superior to replacement in overall clinical outcomes, the appropriateness of valve repair for rheumatic MV disease remains controversial because of the risks of recurrent mitral dysfunction and the need for re-operation. METHODS From 1997 to 2007, 540 patients underwent either isolated MV repair (n=122) or replacement with a mechanic...

Cell transplantation for myocardial repair has emerged as a promising therapy for patients with heart failure. Recent in vitro and in vivo animal studies have suggested the potential of different cell types to differentiate into tissues required for cardiac repair namely endothelial cells and cardiomyocytes. In this review, we will focus on the potential of adult stem cells obtained from adult ...

Clinical trials of bone marrow stem/progenitor cell therapy after myocardial infarction (MI) have shown promising results, but the mechanism of benefit is unclear. We examined the nature of endogenous myocardial repair that is dependent on the function of the c-kit receptor, which is expressed on bone marrow stem/progenitor cells and on recently identified cardiac stem cells. MI increased the n...

Cardiac tissue damage due to myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. The available treatments of MI include pharmaceutical therapy, medical device implants, and organ transplants, all of which have severe limitations including high invasiveness, scarcity of donor organs, thrombosis or stenosis of devices, immune rejection, and prolonged hospitalization ti...

Stem cell transplantation therapy is a promising adjunct for regenerating damaged heart tissue; however, only modest improvements in cardiac function have been observed due to poor survival of transplanted cells in the ischemic heart. Therefore, there remains an unmet need for therapies that can aid in attenuating cardiac damage. Recent studies have demonstrated that exosomes released by stem c...

Stem cell therapy has emerged as a promising strategy for cardiac and vascular repair. The ultimate goal is to rebuild functional myocardium by transplanting exogenous stem cells or by activating native stem cells to induce endogenous repair. CS/PCs (cardiac stem/progenitor cells) are one type of adult stem cell with the potential to differentiate into cardiac lineages (cardiomyocytes, smooth m...