The Annals of thoracic surgery
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We retrospectively reviewed the records of 99 patients who suffered sternal fractures between 1968 and 1987. Patients ranged in age from 5 to 86 years. The most common cause of injury was a motor vehicle accident. ⋯ Traumatic aortic rupture occurred in 2 of 99 patients with sternal fractures (2%) and in 75 of 2,106 patients without sternal fracture (3.6%). This difference was not statistically significant by the Fisher exact test (p = 0.326). We conclude that traumatic aortic rupture does not occur more commonly in patients with sternal fracture when compared with other patients with blunt chest injuries.
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Case Reports
Ventricular pseudoaneurysm associated with cardiopulmonary resuscitation 6 weeks after mitral valve replacement.
Trauma to the heart and mediastinum is associated with external cardiac massage. A patient had undergone a redo mitral valve replacement and experienced an uneventful postoperative course. ⋯ Postresuscitation evaluation revealed a posterior pseudoaneurysm of the ventricle. This was repaired via a transthoracic approach with the use of profound hypothermia.