The Annals of thoracic surgery
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The SynCardia temporary total artificial heart (t-TAH) provides complete circulatory support by replacing both native cardiac ventricles and all cardiac valves. ⋯ The SynCardia t-TAH provided acceptable survival to transplantation rates with a remarkably low incidence of neurologic events. Posttransplant survival was similar to that of patients undergoing primary heart transplantation in France.
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A 10-year-old boy was admitted with dilated cardiomyopathy. Before scheduled implantation of a HeartWare ventricular assist device, he experienced a cardiac arrest and required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for both cardiac and pulmonary support. After 4 days of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and 126 days of support on the HeartWare ventricular assist device, he underwent successful cardiac transplantation. He is doing well 6 months after transplantation.
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The objective was to compare long-term survival after operations for active infective endocarditis (IE) in native or prosthetic valves. We also investigated differences in early death and postoperative complications. ⋯ We found no significant difference in long-term survival between patients who underwent operations for prosthetic valve IE compared with native valve IE. Early death and morbidity were also similar between the groups. These results are promising because an increasing amount of patients with IE have prosthetic valve infections.