[Coronary surgery without extracorporeal circulation and Octopus cardiac stabilizer]. / Cirugía coronaria sin circulación extracorpórea y estabilizador cardíaco Octopus.

Between june and july, 1998, surgical myocardial revascularization without cardiopulmonary by-pass through a conventional sternotomy with the use of the "Octopus" heart stabilizer was performed in 6 patients (mean age 63 years, range 49-74 years). All patients received an internal thoracic artery graft. Three of them had also a saphenous vein graft on the distal right coronary artery. An intracoronary shunt was used in four patients and all the anastomoses were accomplished in a completely immobilized area of epicardium. Mean postoperative hemorrhage was 200 ml (50-300 ml) and ICU and total hospital stay were 2 and 6 days respectively. At the first follow-up control, one month post-op, all six patients are free of symptoms without medication. We believe the "Octopus" tissue stabilization system outperforms other heart stabilization devices in our hands and it can be used safely in selected groups of patients.

[Neurofibromatosis as a cause of arterial hypertension in children]. / Neurofibromatosis como causa de hipertensión arterial en niños.

Hypertension can complicate the course of neurofibromatosis. When it appears in adulthood (after 18 years of age) it is usually due to pheochromocytoma, but in children the cause is a stenotic lesion of the renal arteries or the suprarenal aorta. Its treatment follows the general principles used in the treatment of the more common forms of renovascular hypertension. We report four patients that developed renovascular hypertension after being diagnosed of neurofibromatosis, they had different localizations of the stenotic lesion, and the diverse types of surgical treatment are analyzed.