Background Whether mitral valve repair (MVRep) during coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) improves survival in patients with ischemic mitral regurgitation (MR) remains unknown. Methods and Results Patients with ejection fraction ≤ 35% and coronary artery disease amenable to CABG were randomized at 99 sites worldwide to medical therapy (MED) with or without CABG. The decision to treat the mitral valve during CABG was left to the surgeon. The primary endpoint was mortality. Of 1212 randomized patients, 435 (36%) had none/trace, 554 (46%) mild, 181 (15%) moderate, and 39 (3%) severe MR. In the medical arm, 70 deaths (32%) occurred in patients with none/trace, 114 (44%) with mild and 58 (50%) in moderate-severe MR. In patients with moderate-severe MR, there were 29 deaths (53%) among 55 patients randomized to CABG who did not receive mitral surgery (HR vs. MED 1.20, 95% CI 0.77–1.87) and 21 deaths (43%) among 49 patients who received mitral surgery (HR vs. MED 0.62, 95% CI 0.35–1.08). After adjustment for baseline prognostic variables, the HR for CABG with mitral surgery vs. CABG alone was 0.41 (95%CI 0.22–0.77; p=0.006). Conclusions While these observational data suggest that adding MVRep to CABG in patients with LV dysfunction and moderate-severe MR may improve survival compared with CABG alone or MED alone, a prospective randomized trial would be necessary to confirm the validity of these observations.

Background: Intensive post-operative physiotherapy after cardiac surgery helps to reduce the number of complications, accelerating convalescence and decreasing peri-operative mortality. Cardiac rehabilitation is aimed at regaining lost function and sustaining the effect of cardiac surgery. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of inpatient and home-based phase II physiotherapy following coronary artery bypass grafting, and inpatient phase II post-operative physiotherapy based on the analysis of the spirometry results. Methods: A prospective observational study included 104 adult patients of both sexes undergoing planned coronary artery bypass grafting and were randomized to one of the two groups—inpatients (InPhysio) and home-based (HomePhysio) at a 1:1 ratio. All patients had undergone spirometry testing prior to surgery (S1) and on the fifth day after the operation (S2), i.e., on the day of completion of the first phase (PI) of physiotherapy. Both the study group (InPhysio) and the control group (HomePhysio) performed the same set of exercises in the second phase (PII) of cardiac physiotherapy, either in the hospital or at home, respectively, according to the program obtained in the hospital. Both groups have undergone spirometry testing (S3) at 30 days after the operation. Results: The demographic and peri-operative data for both groups were comparable and showed no statistically significant differences. An analysis of gradients between the results of spirometry tests before surgery and at 30 days after the surgery showed a smaller decrease in forced vital capacity (FVC) in the study group than in the control group (p < 0.001). The results at five and 30 days after the surgery showed a greater increase in FVC in the study group than in the control group (680 mL vs. 450 mL, p = 0.009). There were no statistically significant differences in other parameters studied. Conclusions: The advantage of inpatient over home-based physiotherapy was evidenced by much smaller decreases in FVC between the initial and final tests, and greater increases between the fifth day after surgery and the final test. Our analysis showed greater efficacy of inpatient physiotherapy as compared with home-based exercises and raises concerns about patient adherence.

The mechanisms underlying functional mitral regurgitation (MR), and the relation between mechanism and severity of MR have not been evaluated in a large multicenter randomized controlled trial. Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) was performed in 215 patients at 17 centers in the Surgical Treatment of Ischemic Heart Failure (STICH) trial. Both two-dimensional (2D, n=215) and three-dimensional (3D, n=81) TEE were used to assess multiple quantitative measures of the mechanism and severity of MR. By 2D TEE, leaflet tenting area, anterior and posterior leaflet angles, mitral annulus diameter, left ventricular (LV) end-systolic volume index, LV ejection fraction (LVEF), and sphericity index (p<0.05 for all) were significantly different across MR grades. By 3D TEE, mitral annulus area, leaflet tenting area, LV end-systolic volume index, LVEF, and sphericity index (p<0.05 for all) were significantly different across MR grades. A multivariable analysis showed a trend for annulus area (p=0.069) and LV end-systolic volume index (p=0.071) to predict effective regurgitant orifice area (EROA) and for annulus area (p=0.018) and LV end-systolic volume index (p=0.073) to predict vena contracta area. In the STICH trial, multiple quantitative parameters of the mechanism of functional MR are related to MR severity. The mechanism of functional MR in ischemic cardiomyopathy is heterogeneous but no single variable stands out as a strong predictor of quantitative severity of MR.

Background. Sternal wound infections are a serious and potentially fatal complication of cardiac surgery. Objectives. The aim of the study was to analyze the results of using the vacuum-assisted closure (VAC) system over a 4-year period. Material and Methods. Quantitative VAC performance data from a retrospective review of a consecutive cohort of 47 patients treated with VAC for post-cardiac surgery wound complications were collected and statistically analyzed. In the study group 35 patients developed infections of the post-operative chest wound. In 12 other patients wound dehiscence was observed, but repeated cultures did not reveal the presence of any bacteria. Results. The statistical analysis identified the following as significant risk factors: age, female sex, being overweight, a high total logistic EuroScore, the use of both internal thoracic arteries for bypass grafting, and diabetes. In the wound negative culture group the total length of hospital stay was significantly shorter than in the wound positive culture group. Mortality in this group was 0.0% vs. 5.7% in the wound positive culture group. In the study material, Gram-negative bacteria were responsible for 77% of the post-operative wound infections, with only 14% Gram--positive wound cultures. No complications were related to VAC use. Conclusions. The use of negative-pressure wound therapy with other concomitant surgical procedures is a good method of treating infected wounds as well as non-contaminated dehiscence of the wound and sternum. Considering that most of the infections within the authors' department are caused by Gram-negative bacteria, it would be beneficial to consider modifying the model of preventive antibiotic treatment to cover the Gram-negative spectrum in addition to the Gram-positive bacteria currently targeted (Adv Clin Exp Med 2015, 24, 4, 643-650).

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Mitral regurgitation (MR) is common in ischemic heart disease and contributes to symptoms and mortality. This report compares the results of baseline transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) and transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) imaging of the mechanism and severity of functional MR in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy in the Surgical Treatment for Ischemic Heart Failure (STICH) trial. Independent core labs measured both TTE and TEE images on 196 STICH patients. Common measurements to both modalities included MR grade, mitral valve tenting height and tenting area, and mitral annular diameter. For each parameter, correlations were assessed using Spearman rank correlation coefficients. A modest correlation (figure) was present between TEE and TTE for overall MR grade (n=176, r=0.52). For mechanism of MR, modest correlations were present for long-axis tenting height (n=152, r=0.35), tenting area (n=128, r=0.27), and long-axis mitral annulus diameter (n=123, r=0.41). For each measurement, there was significant scatter. Potential explanations for the scatter include different orientation of the imaging planes between TEE and TTE, a mean temporal delay of 6 days between TEE and TTE, and statistically significant differences in heart rate and blood pressure and weight between studies. In conclusion, TEE and TTE measurements of MR mechanism and severity correlate only modestly with enough scatter in the data that they are not interchangeable.

URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT00023595.