Background-We assessed the validity of the atrial electromechanical interval, measured by transthoracic tissue Doppler echocardiography, in determining patients at risk of post-coronary artery bypass graft atrial fibrillation (AF). Methods and Results-This prospective study recruited 355 patients in sinus rhythm who were candidates for coronary artery bypass grafting. The patients underwent a preoperative transthoracic echocardiography with a tissue Doppler evaluation and were monitored with continuous ECG telemetry during their hospital stay. Sixty-eight patients had postoperative AF (19.2%), with the incident occurring 2.3Ϯ0.7 days after surgery. The median length of hospitalization was 7.0 days for the AF patients and 6.0 days for the non-AF patients (PϽ0.0001). The subjects with postoperative AF differed from the sinus rhythm patients in that the former had a lower ejection fraction (40.4Ϯ8.5% versus 48.4Ϯ9.4%), a reduced maximal A-wave transmitral Doppler flow velocity (44.3Ϯ4.6 versus 53.3Ϯ10.9 cm/s), an increased total atrial volume (68.7Ϯ12.6 versus 55.3Ϯ11.8 mL), and a prolonged atrial electromechanical interval (141.9Ϯ13.4 versus 100.3Ϯ10.3 ms, respectively; PϽ0.0001 for all). In addition, the AF patients were older than the sinus rhythm group (66.0Ϯ8.0 versus 59.8Ϯ8.5 years). The atrial electromechanical interval was the best independent discriminator of the history of AF. We defined a cutoff point for the atrial electromechanical interval and chose 120 milliseconds for categorization, which yielded 100% sensitivity and 94.8% specificity for the prediction of AF. Conclusions-The atrial electromechanical interval by transthoracic tissue Doppler echocardiography could be a valuable method for identifying patients vulnerable to post-coronary artery bypass graft AF.

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Behcet's disease is a multisystem disorder and classified as "vasculitic syndrome with a wide variety of clinical manifestations." Cardiac involvement is very rare but can occur with different presentations including: pericarditis, cardiomyopathy, endocarditis, endomyocardial fibrosis, intracavitary thrombosis, and coronary artery disease. Great vessel involvement is more common. Recurrent Phlebitis, commonly involving large vessels (superior vena cava, inferior vena cava, hepatic veins) and cerebral veins are the sole presentation in this regard. Arterial involvement is expressed by aneurysm or pseudoaneurysmal formation. Due to the wide variety of cardiovascular manifestations and the resulting high mortality, cardiac surgeons should be familiar with this disease. In this paper we review the articles and introduce our four cases presenting with aneurysm of ascending aorta with free aortic insufficiency, aneurysm of descending aorta, pulmonary artery aneurysm, and pseudoaneurysm of aortic arch. doi: 10.1111/j. 1540-8191.2008.00607.x (J Card Surg 200823:765-768) Behcet's disease (BD) was first discovered in 1937 by Hulusi Behcet. It is an autoimmune disease and is classified as a vasculitic syndrome. This disease is a multisystem disorder with a wide variety of clinical manifestations including skin, eye, musculoskeletal, neurologic, and cardiovascular presentations. 1,2 The spectrum of cardiac diseases may include pericarditis, coronary artery stenosis or aneurysm, myocarditis, cardiomyopathy, congestive heart failure, valvular pathology, endocarditis or endocavitary thrombosis, aneurysm of aorta and its branches, pulmonary artery aneurysm, or venous thrombosis. Due to its wide variety of pathologies, disease presentation may vary in each case. CASE REPORT Case 1A 24-year-old man, a known case of BD, under followup by the rheumatology clinic in our center, developed exertional chest pain a few weeks prior to presentation to our ward. His workup, including chest xray (CXR), computed tomography (CT) scan, transthoracic echocardiography, and aortography, showed cardiomegaly, severe aortic insufficiency, and a huge aneurysm of ascending aorta as is shown in (Fig. 1). aortic valve no. 23. The patient had a smooth postoperative course and an uneventful recovery, but 20 days postoperative the patient was operated on once again Address for correspondence: Mehrab Marzban, M.D., Tehran Heart Center, Tehran, Iran. Fax: +98-21-88029256; e-mail: mehrabmarzban2007@yahoo.com due to massive pericardial effusion resulting from subxiphoid drainage. Now, two years postoperative, the patient is on maintenance prednisolone therapy. Case 2A 50-year-old woman, a known case of BD with cutaneous and ocular manifestation on prednisolone and colchicine, presented to our center with a history of upper abdominal pain, mild dysphagia, and weight loss for a few weeks. Her workup, including CXR, echocardiography, CT scan, and aortogram, showed a saccular aneurysm of descending aorta, just above the diaphragm (Fig. 2). The patient...

Routine screening of the abdominal aorta during transthoracic echocardiography is recommended on account of the prevalence of AAA in unselected and, in particular, older patients.

The optimal management of moderate (grade 2-3+) ischemic mitral regurgitation (MR) in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) remains controversial. While CABG alone can reverse regurgitation in some patients with moderate MR, adjunctive mitral repair may be necessary in others. We performed low-dose dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE) in 60 patients with moderate MR who were about to undergo CABG. Group I, 25 patients who demonstrated reduction in MR during DSE, had CABG alone. Group II, 35 patients in whom MR was unchanged during DSE, had mitral valve repair as well as CABG. MR was reduced postoperatively in both groups (P < 0.0001). Postoperative ejection fraction in Group I (12.2%) improved more than that in Group II (9.3%) (P < 0.01). We conclude that CABG alone may be sufficient to correct moderate MR when MR is reduced during DSE.

In our previous study, we defined a cut-off point of 120 ms for atrial electromechanical interval (AEMi) to determine the risk of atrial fibrillation (AF) occurrence. Accordingly, the present study sought to investigate whether or not a prophylactic perioperative administration of amiodarone could reduce the incidence of AF in a high-risk group (AEMi >120 ms) undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). In this prospective, randomized study, 100 patients with AEMi >120 ms received either amiodarone (n=50) or placebo (n=50). The endpoints were AF occurrence after CABG and hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) lengths of stay after CABG. The incidence of postoperative AF was significantly higher in the placebo group than that of the amiodarone group (88% of patients in control group vs. 16% of patients in amiodarone group, P<0.0001). The prophylactic therapy with amiodarone significantly reduced the ICU length of stay (2.28+/-1.00 vs. 3.60+/-0.90 days, P<0.0001) and hospital length of stay (5.64+/-2.35 vs. 7.78+/-1.46 days, P<0.0001). The incidence of postoperative AF among patients with high AEMi was significantly reduced by a prophylactic amiodarone treatment, resulting in shorter ICU and hospital stays.

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