European journal of cardio-thoracic surgery : official journal of the European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery
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Eur J Cardiothorac Surg · Jan 2012
Case ReportsRight atrial thrombosis and pulmonary embolism after atrial septal defect repair.
A 3-year-old boy underwent surgical closure of a large ostium secundum atrial septal defect. This was complicated with extensive right atrial thrombus formation and pulmonary thromboembolism immediately following surgery. He was managed with emergency surgical thromboembolectomy and anticoagulation. ⋯ This prompted us to add thrombolysis to his treatment, but with no effect. He died on the fifth postoperative day. A postmortem study confirmed extensive thromboembolism.
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Eur J Cardiothorac Surg · Jan 2012
Tissue-engineered vascular graft remodeling in a growing lamb model: expression of matrix metalloproteinases.
We have previously demonstrated the functionality and growth of autologous, living, tissue-engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs) in long-term animal studies. These grafts showed substantial in vivo tissue remodeling and approximation to native arterial wall characteristics. Based on this, in vitro and in vivo matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) activity of TEVGs is investigated as a key marker of matrix remodeling. ⋯ MMPs are up-regulated in vitro by dynamic culture conditions and could contribute to increased matrix remodeling, native analogous tissue formation and functional growth of TEVGs in vivo. Monitoring of MMP activity, for example, by molecular imaging techniques, may enable the non-invasive assessment of functional tissue quality in future clinical tissue-engineering applications.