The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery
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J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg. · Feb 2023
Assessing donor organ quality according to recipient characteristics in lung transplantation.
There is a shortage of donor lungs relative to need, but overall donor organ utilization remains low. The most common reason for refusal is organ quality, but the standards applied to selection vary. In this study we sought to characterize differences in lung utilization according to quality across several clinically distinct recipient pools. ⋯ Extended quality lungs comprise an increasing share of transplants in a national sample. Organ selection varies according to recipient age and lung allocation score. However, absolute differences in quality distribution are small, and adverse effects on outcomes are limited to organs with multiple extended qualifying characteristics.
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J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg. · Feb 2023
Hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha enhances the secretome to rejuvenate adult cardiosphere-derived cells.
After cardiac injury, endogenous repair mechanisms are ineffective. However, cell-based therapies provide a promising clinical intervention based on their ability to restore and remodel injured myocardium due to their paracrine factors. Recent clinical trials have demonstrated that adult cardiosphere-derived cell therapy is safe for the treatment of ischemic heart failure, although with limited regenerative potential. The limited efficiency of cardiosphere-derived cells after myocardial infarction is due to the inferior quality of their secretome. This study sought to augment the therapeutic potential of cardiosphere-derived cells by modulating hypoxia-inducible factor-1α, a regulator of paracrine factors. ⋯ Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α improves the functional potency of cardiosphere-derived cells to preserve myocardial function after myocardial infarction by enriching the cardiosphere-derived cells' secretome with cardioprotective factors. This strategy may be useful for improving the efficacy of allogeneic cell-based therapies in future clinical trials.
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J. Thorac. Cardiovasc. Surg. · Feb 2023
Efficacy of opioid-sparing analgesia after median sternotomy with continuous bilateral parasternal subpectoral plane blocks.
Regional anesthetic techniques, traditionally underutilized in cardiac surgery, may play a role in multimodal analgesia, effectively improving pain control and reducing opioid consumption. We investigated the efficacy of continuous bilateral ultrasound-guided parasternal subpectoral plane blocks following sternotomy. ⋯ Continuous bilateral parasternal subpectoral plane blocks may further reduce poststernotomy pain and opioid consumption within the context ERAS multimodal analgesia.