Cause of profound hypoxemia following a bilateral bidirectional Glenn shunt: Clue suggested by agitated saline echo contrast.

Following a bilateral bidirectional Glenn shunt, a child had persistent hypoxemia. Agitated saline contrast injection into the jugular vein during transesophageal echocardiography displayed a rapid appearance of saline particles in the cardiac chambers suggesting the presence of pulmonary arteriovenous malformations. However, the clinical picture was not in agreement and an angiographic contrast injection during an immediate cardiac catheterization revealed the underlying pathology which was immediately corrected surgically.

Emergency Surgery Score as an Effective Risk Stratification Tool for Patients Undergoing Emergency Surgeries: A Narrative Review.

Several risk stratification tools have been described for quantifying perioperative morbidity, mortality, and adverse events in patients undergoing elective and emergency surgeries. These tools help in decision-making, determining the prognosis and communicating it with patients and family members, and planning admissions to the intensive care units (ICU) if necessary. Emergency surgery poses quite a unique challenge in terms of deranged physiology, age, and comorbid conditions, and often carries a higher incidence of morbidity and mortality. Very few risk stratification tools are available to reliably predict the risk posed by emergency surgical interventions. One of the recently described tools is the Emergency Surgery Score (ESS), which comprises three demographic variables, 10 comorbidities, and nine laboratory variables, the scores of which add up to 29. Several studies have demonstrated that ESS reliably predicts morbidity, mortality, and the need for ICU admission, predicting infectious complications like pneumonia and renal failure. In this review, we analyze the current literature to investigate the efficacy and reliability of ESS as a risk stratification tool for patients undergoing emergency surgeries.

A rare case of cardiac hydatid cyst.

Hydatid infection of the heart is rare and there is always the lethal hazard of cyst perforation. We present an 18-year-old male from Kashmir valley who was admitted to the emergency department of our hospital with fever and chest pain for the last 4 days. Using echocardiography and cardiac tomography (CT), cardiac Echinococcosis was diagnosed. The results of surgical treatment of cardiac Echinococcosis were better than the conservative strategy. Surgical excision was performed. The patient had an uneventful recovery.

Successful management of a giant unruptured mycotic coronary artery aneurysm after coronary angioplasty.

Coronary artery stent infection has been reported with both bare metal stent and drug eluting stent and can present as mycotic coronary artery aneurysm, pseudoaneurysm, myocardial abscess, pericarditis or exudative effusion. Infection at the site of coronary stent implantation is rare and is believed to result typically from either direct stent contamination at the time of delivery or transient bacteraemia from access site. Introduction of drug-eluting stent (DES) has led to a marked reduction in the problem of in-stent restenosis across all patient subsets and lesions complexities. Recently, several case reports of pseudoaneurysm formation after DES implantation have been reported in the literature. We describe the successful surgical management of giant mycotic pseudoaneurysm of left anterior descending artery (LAD) presenting as fever of unknown origin. This report illustrates the importance of early detection and prompt management of these rare coronary pseudoaneurysms, which is a highly lethal condition.

Which valve is which?

A 25-year-old man presented with a history of breathlessness for the past 2 years. He had a history of operation for Tetralogy of Fallot at the age of 5 years and history suggestive of Rheumatic fever at the age of 7 years. On echocardiographic examination, all his heart valves were severely regurgitating. Morphologically, all the valves were irreparable. The ejection fraction was 35%. He underwent quadruple valve replacement. The aortic and mitral valves were replaced by metallic valve and the tricuspid and pulmonary by tissue valve.

Minimally invasive pulmonary artery banding: a new approach.

BACKGROUND: A variety of approaches have been described for banding of the pulmonary artery. The indications for this procedure are limited; however in developing countries, many patients still need pulmonary artery banding for a variety of reasons. We describe a new approach, minimally invasive, using only a split in the manubrium sterni to conduct the procedure. METHODS AND RESULTS: Between January 2000 and May 2002, 19 patients who had undergone pulmonary artery banding using a minimally invasive technique were compared with 20 cases of pulmonary artery banding performed by the conventional technique. The mortality was similar in the two groups (p=0.45). The period of intubation and duration of intensive care unit stay were significantly shorter in the minimally invasive group (p=0.015 and 0.002, respectively). The duration of hospital stay was not significantly different between the 2 groups (p=0.139). In the minimally invasive group, three patients underwent subsequent reoperation. CONCLUSIONS: Minimally invasive pulmonary artery banding is useful in babies with high-flow cardiac lesions and cardiac cachexia.

Intraoperative autologous blood donation and retrograde autologous priming for cardiopulmonary bypass: a safe and effective technique for blood conservation.

Haemodilution resulting from crystalloid priming of the cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) circuit is one of the important reasons for blood transfusion in cardiac surgery, especially in patients with low body surface area (BSA). A prospective study was performed to investigate the technique of intraoperative blood donation (IAD) and retrograde autologous priming (RAP) to limit haemodilution and transfusion requirements. Forty patients with low BSA (<1.7 m2) undergoing primary valvular cardiac surgery were assigned to either RAP group or a control group (C). The RAP group (n=20) was subjected to IAD by collecting a calculated volume of blood (272+/-44.3 mL) after induction of anaesthesia. Prior to initiation of CPB the prime volume was reduced by discarding some of it and the CPB reservoir was filled retrogradely through the aortic cannula draining 482+/-78.4 mL of blood. In group C (n=20) only IAD was carried out collecting 295.0+/-62.6 mL of blood. Anaesthetic technique was similar in both groups. Strict transfusion thresholds were observed. There were no significant difference between the groups with respect to baseline characteristics, BSA, type of procedure, perfusion technique and haematologic profile. The haematocrit on CPB was significantly higher in the RAP group as compared with group C (24.2+/-1.3% and 22.1+/-2.5% respectively, p=0.009). Transfusion of allogenic blood during and after surgery was significantly lower in the RAP group (143.6+/-117 mL) versus 405.2+/-358.1 mL in group C (p=0.02). Postoperative chest tube drainage was 218+/-67.4 mL in the RAP group and 300+/-191 mL in group C which was not significantly different (p=0.18). The technique of intraoperative autologous donation and retrograde priming is simple, safe and cost effective procedure for blood conservation in patients with small BSA undergoing primary valvular surgery.