The Annals of thoracic surgery
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Comment Letter
Direct access to the paravertebral space at thoracotomy.
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Unilateral lung transplantation has become a successful method for the treatment of end-stage pulmonary disease, whereas double-lung transplantation has provided benefit to patients with nonfibrotic lung disease such as emphysema and cystic fibrosis. In the past 5 years, 16 single-lung and 13 double-lung transplantations have been performed by the Toronto Lung Transplant Group in patients with end-stage lung disease. Seven perioperative and two late deaths have been recorded so far. ⋯ Most of the techniques proposed against ischemia can be classified as normothermic or static hypothermic cardiopulmonary preservation. The use of the normothermic method has not always been successful. For this reason, interest has now been directed toward the potential for hypothermic preservation of the heart-lung bloc and the use of free-radical scavenger therapy in the reduction of reperfusion injury.
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Sixty-two consecutive patients underwent heart valve operation for active infective endocarditis. There were 42 men and 20 women whose mean age was 49 years (range, 21 to 79 years). The infection was in the aortic valve in 37 patients, the mitral valve in 18, the aortic and mitral valves in 5, and the tricuspid valve in 2. ⋯ Most survivors (96%) are currently in New York Heart Association class I or II. The 5-year actuarial survival was 79% +/- 7%. These data demonstrate excellent results in patients with native valve endocarditis, and support the premise that patients with prosthetic valve endocarditis should have early surgical intervention.
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The optimal procedure for shunting palliation in cyanotic infants remains to be determined. Sixty-two infants less than 3 months of age underwent 63 modified Blalock-Taussig shunts. Their age range at operation was 1 to 84 days (mean, 16 +/- 20 days). ⋯ Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that the size of the graft was a risk factor of shunt failure. Severe distortion of the pulmonary arterial branch was noted in 12 patients. The inferences are: (1) modified Blalock-Taussig shunts provide satisfactory early palliation but late shunt failure is frequent; (2) similar results should be obtained with other shunting procedures; and (3) the optimal procedure should be selected for each cyanotic infant on an individual basis.
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Ten beagle dogs underwent left unilateral lung transplantation and were treated with cyclosporine and azathioprine. After three days, cyclosporine administration was discontinued and azathioprine administration was maintained at a suboptimal dose to allow a graded response to the pulmonary allograft. Dogs were monitored by chest roentgenogram, bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), and sampling of peripheral blood lymphocytes at weekly intervals. ⋯ Based on these results, 3 additional dogs were maintained on cyclosporine. Two of these dogs did not reject their transplants and had no evidence of DSC. We conclude that donor-specific functional assays provide an advance over less sensitive clinical techniques.