Identification of Human Pathological Mitral Chordae Tendineae Using Polarization-sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography.

Defects of the mitral valve complex imply heart malfunction. The chordae tendineae (CTs) are tendinous strands connecting the mitral and tricuspid valve leaflets to the papillary muscles. These CTs are composed of organized, wavy collagen bundles, making them a strongly birefringent material. Disorder of the collagen structure due to different diseases (rheumatic, degenerative) implies the loss or reduction of tissue birefringence able to be characterized with Polarization Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography (PS-OCT). PS-OCT is used to discriminate healthy from diseased chords, as the latter must be excised and replaced in clinical conventional interventions. PS-OCT allows to quantify birefringence reduction in human CTs affected by degenerative and rheumatic pathologies. This tissue optical property is proposed as a diagnostic marker for the identification of degradation of tendinous chords to guide intraoperative mitral valve surgery.

[Abdominal aortic aneurysm treated by endovascular surgery: a case report]. / Paciente intervenido de aneurisma de aorta abdominal por técnica quirúrgica endovascular. Caso clínico.

An aneurysm is an abnormal dilation or irreversible convex of a portion of an artery. The most common site of aneurysms is the abdominal aorta and their appearance is often due to degeneration of the arterial wall, associated with atherosclerosis and favored by risk factors such as smoking and hypertension, among others. Left untreated, aneurysm of the abdominal aorta usually leads to rupture. Treatment is surgical, consisting of the introduction of a prosthesis, composed basically of a stent and an introducer, into the aorta. We report the case of a person diagnosed with abdominal aortic aneurysm in a routine examination who was admitted for ambulatory surgical treatment. We designed a nursing care plan, following Virginia Henderson's conceptual model. The care plan was divided into 2 parts, a first preoperative phase and a second postimplantation or monitoring phase. The care plan contained the principal nursing diagnoses, based on the taxonomies of the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA), nursing interventions classification (NIC) and nursing outcomes classifications (NOC), and collaboration problems/potential complications. The patient was discharged to home after contact was made with his reference nurse in the primary health center, since during the hospital phase, some NOC indicators remained unresolved.