The patient, who had undergone a complete cure of a tetralogy of Fallot 25 years previously, was discovered to have an ascending aorta aneurysm on echography. Bentall's procedure was carried-out, using a modified indirect coronary artery transplantation based on the Cabrol technique. As reported in the literature complications are mainly right sided and less frequently occur on the left side in this disease. Including the hypothesis of the overload volume which may provoke aortic root dilation, there is also an intrinsic pathology of the media which could often be related to embryogenesis abnormalities, i.e., abnormal migration of cardiac neural crest cells which may explain this condition.
From 1974 to 1984, 46 patients underwent emergency surgery for acute native valve endocarditis. Urgent valve replacement was necessary because of rapid hemodynamic deterioration in 34 (73%), uncontrolled sepsis plus heart failure in 9 (19%), and life-threatening emboli in 3 (7%) patients. At the time of surgery 23 patients (50%) were in NYHA functional class IV, 20 in Class III, and 3 in class II. Streptococcus was the most common organism encountered, followed by staphylococcus. Thirty-four cases presented severe aortic regurgitation, 3 mitral incompetence, 8 mitral plus aortic insufficiency, and one aortic plus tricuspid insufficiency. Operative mortality rate was 17% (8/46). Most deaths were due to preoperative multiple system deterioration, especially in cases with lesions of both the aortic and mitral valves, and were unrelated to the duration of preoperative antibiotic therapy. The postoperative observation period of long-term survival is from 6 to 102 months (= 44 months). There were 7 late deaths. The actuarial survival, including operative mortality, is 67%. Twenty-two patients are now in NYHA class II, 6 in class III. The duration of postoperative antibiotic treatment (6 weeks in our series) seems to be important for the prevention of reinfection, early surgery is of great benefit; our 31 survivors showed an excellent clinical improvement.
Since 1978, 17 patients have undergone surgery for massive pulmonary embolism in our department. Twelve patients survived and have been followed up for between 2 and 31 months postoperatively (mean 16 months). Reassessment of these patients included exercise tolerance test, pulmonary function test, perfusion scan, right heart catheterization and coagulation screening. Two survivors present major sequelae, namely vascular pruning and definite signs of pulmonary hypertension. The other 10 patients have minimal or no residual vascular occlusion, but show a high incidence of minor abnormalities: slight rise in pulmonary arterial pressure during exercise (3 cases), small angiographic and scintigraphic defects (5 cases), arterial hypoxemia (5 cases) and disturbances of pulmonary function (10 cases). Systemic venous problems were found to be frequent and to be a handicap in 5 cases, and an abnormal pattern of response to exercise was observed in 4 patients. These disturbances may be related to ligation of the vena cava. Various derangements of coagulation were found in all but one of the patients.
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