The Annals of thoracic surgery
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Comparative Study
Very prolonged stay in the intensive care unit after cardiac operations: early results and late survival.
Prolonged intensive care unit (ICU) stay is a surrogate for advanced morbidity or perioperative complications, and resource utilization may become an issue. It is our policy to continue full life support in the ICU, even for patients with a seemingly grim outlook. We examined the effect of duration of ICU stay on early outcomes and late survival. ⋯ Current technology enables keeping sick patients alive for extended periods of time. Nearly two thirds of patients requiring prolonged ICU leave hospital, and of these, 50% attain 5-year survival. These data support offering full and continued support even for patients requiring very prolonged ICU stay.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Hospital-based, acute care use among patients within 30 days of discharge after coronary artery bypass surgery.
There is growing interest in how frequently patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery require hospital readmission within 30 days of discharge. Readmissions, however, may not capture all hospital-based, acute care needs after discharge. The purpose of this study is to describe the frequency of and diagnoses associated with emergency department (ED) visits and hospital readmissions within 30 days of discharge after CABG surgery and to compare outcomes across hospitals. ⋯ Patients discharged after CABG surgery frequently experienced ED visits and hospital readmissions within 30 days, often for similar diagnoses. Monitoring both hospital readmissions and ED visits after CABG surgery is important to our understanding of hospital-based, acute care needs after discharge.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
The no-touch saphenous vein as the preferred second conduit for coronary artery bypass grafting.
Injury incurred while saphenous veins are being obtained results in poor graft patency and impairs the results of coronary artery bypass grafting. A novel method of obtaining veins, the no-touch technique, has shown improved long-term saphenous vein graft patency. ⋯ No-touch saphenous vein grafts showed a significantly higher patency rate than the radial artery grafts and the patency was comparable to the patency for left internal thoracic artery grafts. This highlights the improvement in saphenous vein graft quality with the no-touch technique and increases the number of situations in which saphenous veins may be preferable to radial artery grafts as conduits in coronary artery bypass grafting.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
The Perceval S aortic valve has the potential of shortening surgical time: does it also result in improved outcome?
Sutureless aortic valve prostheses have the potential of shortening surgical time. However, whether shorter operative times may also result in improved patient outcomes remains to be established. ⋯ Sutureless implantation of the Perceval valve is associated with shorter cross-clamp and cardiopulmonary bypass times, resulting in improved clinical outcome. In addition, it compares favorably with conventional valves in terms of mortality and outcome variables.
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Comparative Study
In-hospital shunt occlusion in infants undergoing a modified blalock-taussig shunt.
The clinical variables leading to postoperative thrombotic occlusion of a modified Blalock-Taussig shunt (mBTS) remain elusive. In this investigation, we assess several perioperative variables to determine associations with postoperative in-hospital shunt occlusion. ⋯ We found that a patient's anatomy (pulmonary atresia/ventricular septal defect with or without major aortopulmonary collateral arteries) and the size of the pulmonary artery being shunted had a significant impact in predicting postoperative in-hospital shunt occlusion. These results emphasize that technical skills and a low resistance to blood flow are necessary for successful shunt function. Although some perioperative coagulation values were significantly reduced in infants who were destined to experience shunt occlusion, they would be difficult to detect clinically.