[Practical considerations for the treatment of acute rhythm disturbances. Report of Belgium Interdisciplinary Working Group on Acute Cardiology]. / Recommandations pratiques pour le traitement d'arythmies aiguës. Rapport du Groupe Interdisciplinaire Belge de Cardiologie Aiguë.

Acute arrhythmia is a condition covering a wide variety of rhythm disturbances. The aim of the article is to give practical recommendations for the approach and the treatment of the patient presenting with an acute arrhythmia. We discuss bradycardia and tachycardia. Tachycardias are divided into the small QRS complex tachycardias and the wide QRS complex tachycardias. Another important distinction with immediate therapeutic consequences is that between the hemodynamic stable and unstable patient. Flowcharts with diagnostic means and therapeutic schemes are added and a table with practical considerations for electrical cardioversion.

Mitral valve procedures in ischemic regurgitation.

A restrictive definition of ischemic mitral regurgitation (IMR) has allowed us to select a more uniform cohort of 41 patients having undergone mitral valve surgery for IMR between January 1993 and March 1995. Thirty-six patients (88%) presented with chronic and five with acute IMR. All patients had at least one significant stenosis in the circumflex area. Left ventricular ejection fraction averaged 35%. Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) revealed a > or = 3+ MR in 30 patients and an intermittent, fluctuating or grade 2+ MR in 11 (27%). Annulus dilatation was found in all cases, and it was the only mechanism in 10 (24.4%). Leaflet restrictive motion was clearly seen in 17 cases (41.5%) and leaflet prolapse in 14 (34%). In doubtful cases, an intra-operative dynamic testing using TEE, and associating a loading test and an afterload test, led to the indication of a valve procedure in 11/19 patients (58%). An average of three distal coronary anastomoses per patient were constructed. Mitral valve replacement (MVR) was unavoidable in four patients (9.8%); at least the posterior leaflet subvalvular apparatus was preserved in all. Repair of the mitral valve (Mvrep) was achieved in 37 cases (90%). Ring annuloplasty alone was performed in 27 cases (73%). In the remaining 10 cases, leaflet prolapse was corrected by various artifices such as flip-over technique, quadrangular resection, papillary muscle plication or commissuroplasty. At the 10th postoperative day, a residual MR was found in 4/34 cases (11.8%), only after isolated ring annuloplasty. The four patients who have died in the ICU after MVrep belonged to the same group of isolated ring annuloplasty; this mortality of 4/27 (14.8%) illustrates the mediocre prognosis of marked annulus dilatation and impaired LV function with restrictive leaflet motion. Overall, the hospital mortality (14.6%) more reflected the mode of presentation of the patients than the type of operative technique: when a short and definitive procedure is required by a precarious general condition, one should not hesitate to prefer a rapid MVR to a complicated repair. At 4.5 months, there was no significant improvement in LV dimensions. At six months, 80.5% of the patients survived, with 88% of them being in NYHA class I or II.