Faculty Bibliography

There have been few relatively complete follow-up studies of long-term mitral valve function after Carpentier-type surgical reconstruction. Between January 1980 and May 1986, 148 patients underwent Carpentier reconstruction for mitral valve disease (43% degenerative and 30% rheumatic). Operative mortality was 5.4% overall (1.2% for isolated mitral reconstruction), and follow-up (mean, 26 months) was completed for all survivors. Five-year survival from late cardiac death was 90.0%, as was 5-year freedom from postreconstruction mitral valve replacement. Postreconstruction mitral replacement was needed in eight patients, in only five for failure of repair. Follow-up echocardiographic studies on 83.2% (104 of 125) of eligible patients showed 92.3% were free of significant (3+ or 4+) mitral regurgitation. Freedom from mitral valve replacement or recurrent severe (4+) insufficiency was 84.4% at 5 years overall, but was lower for the rheumatic type of mitral disease than for the degenerative type (71.6% vs. 88.3%). At 5 years, 95.2% of patients were free from thromboembolism without the necessity for long-term warfarin (Coumadin) therapy. At follow-up, 95.3% of survivors had improved to New York Heart Association Class I or II. The functional durability of mitral reconstruction and consistently high level of freedom from late endocarditis and thromboembolic and anticoagulant complications support the value of the Carpentier method of mitral reconstruction for mitral insufficiency, especially insufficiency due to degenerative disease

Experiences with the recent successful treatment of a patient with an aneurysm arising from an aberrant subclavian artery are described. The reported experiences with surgical treatment by others were reviewed in detail: Only 16 such patients were found, with a surprising frequency of serious complications. These data led to the conclusion that a two-stage approach, through right cervical and left thoracotomy incisions, seems to offer the ideal method of treatment for this unusual problem

Current use of angioplasty, thrombolysis, and surgical techniques for prompt reperfusion of an acute myocardial infarction raises questions concerning the optimum reperfusion technique for maximum myocardial salvage. Alterations in the conditions of reperfusion and/or the composition of the initial reperfusate can exert a significant effect on the extent of myocardial salvage. In an effort to define an optimum reperfusion technique, we used 40 dogs in a series of experiments in which the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) was snared for 2 hr followed by reperfusion by one of five methods for 4 hr. In addition, in a control group(group I, n = 6) the LAD was occluded for 6 hr without any reperfusion. In group 2 (n = 12), simulating medical reperfusion, reperfusion was achieved by simply releasing the snare for 4 hr. Group 3 dogs (n = 6) were placed on pulsatile left atrial-femoral bypass throughout 4 hr of reperfusion. Group 4 dogs (n = 9) were placed on percutaneous, synchronized pulsatile cardiopulmonary bypass during reperfusion. The procedure in group 5 (n = 7) dogs simulated coronary artery bypass grafting with cardiopulmonary bypass and cold blood, low-Ca++ cardioplegia during reperfusion. Group 6 (n = 6) was treated similarly except that during reperfusion amino acid-enriched cardioplegia was administered by warm induction techniques. At the end of 4 hr of reperfusion, the left ventricular area of infarction was determined by triphenyltetrazolium chloride staining and expressed as a percentage of the left ventricular area at risk for infarction (area of infarction [AI]/area at risk [AR]).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Percutaneous total cardiopulmonary bypass offers the advantage of rapid, simple implementation without the need for thoracic incision and provides the ability to support both left and right ventricular failure as well as pulmonary insufficiency. Previous studies using roller pump percutaneous bypass were only partially successful because of the inability to effectively unload the left ventricle. In the present experiment we attempted to determine in a normal canine model whether use of synchronous pulsatile pumping for percutaneous bypass could overcome this problem. Fourteen dogs were placed on percutaneous bypass for 1 hour. A roller pump was used in seven and a synchronous pulsatile pump with an electrocardiogram triggering mechanism in the other seven. All animals were maintained on percutaneous bypass for 1 hour. In the pulsatile pump group there was a significantly greater percent decrease from baseline in tension-time index (-56.3% versus -19.1%, p less than 0.01) and in myocardial oxygen consumption (-45.8% versus +2.1%, p less than 0.05) and a significantly greater percent increase in the endocardial/epicardial blood flow ratio (27.6% versus -6.5%, p less than 0.01) than in the roller pump group. These results show that superior unloading can be achieved by percutaneous pulsatile bypass compared with percutaneous roller pump bypass. The findings suggest that percutaneous total cardiopulmonary bypass with a synchronous pulsatile pump offers a relatively simple but effective method for providing appropriate patients with temporary hemodynamic stability before cardiac catheterization or medical or surgical revascularization

Sixteen hundred and forty-three porcine prosthetic values (1102 Carpentier-Edwards, 541 Hancock) were implanted in 1492 patients at New York University Medical Center between January 1976 and June 1983. The aortic valve alone was replaced in 786 patients (53%), mitral valve alone in 556 (37%), and multiple valves in 143 patients (9.6%). Concomitant coronary artery bypass was performed in 326 patients (22%). There were 116 deaths within 30 days of operation (7.8%). Follow-up (mean: 42 months) was completed in 94% of survivors and revealed that late survival from cardiac-related death was 87% at 5 years and 81% at 7 years, with no significant difference between the Carpentier-Edwards and Hancock patients. Late thromboembolic complications, however, were significantly more frequent in Hancock patients at all intervals from 1-7 years (p less than 0.05), whether in the aortic or mitral position. Patients with coronary artery disease who had concomitant coronary bypass showed a survival from late cardiac death that did not differ significantly from that of patients undergoing valve replacement alone. Before operation, 87% of patients were in New York Heart Association Class III or IV, but after operation 80% were in Class I or II. Late anticoagulant complications, endocarditis, and valve dysfunction were relatively rare. These results from a series of such size, duration, and representative numbers of two types of porcine bioprosthesis confirm excellent results with porcine prostheses in the first 4-5 years following operation