The Current Management of Cardiac Tumours: a Comprehensive Literature Review.

Objective: To understand the current evidence and guidelines behind the appropriate management of cardiac tumours.

Methods: A comprehensive electronic literature search has been performed in major databases - PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Ovid, and Google Scholar. All articles that discussed all different forms of cardiac tumours, their clinical presentation, diagnosis, and management methods have been critically appraised in this narrative review.

Skeletonized or Pedicled Harvesting of Left Internal Mammary Artery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

We sought to compare clinical outcomes in skeletonized versus pedicled left internal mammary artery (LIMA) grafts in elective coronary artery bypass grafting through a systematic review and meta-analysis. A comprehensive electronic literature search of PubMed, Ovid, Embase, and Scopus was conducted from inception to January 2020. Only short-term (30 days) studies which compared both techniques have been included in our analysis.

Left Atrial or Transeptal Approach for Mitral Valve Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

To compare outcomes of mitral valve surgery through conventional left atriotomy and transeptal approach (TS). Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines were followed. Primary outcomes were operative mortality and permanent pacemaker (PPM) implantation; secondary outcomes were new onset of atrial fibrillation (AF), stroke and operative times.

TAVI and the future of aortic valve replacement.

Aortic valve stenosis (AS) is the most common valvular pathology and has traditionally been managed using surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR). A large proportion of affected patient demographics, however, are unfit to undergo major surgery given underlying comorbidities. Since its introduction in 2002, transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has gained popularity and transformed the care available to different-risk group patients with severe symptomatic AS.

Comprehensive literature review of anomalies of the coronary arteries.

Coronary artery anomalies (CAA) are vanishingly rare, affecting less than 1% of the general population. While the majority of anomalies do not cause significant symptoms; those that do, have devastating outcomes on the patient. Seventeen percent of deaths from exercise is attributed to CAA, and over half of these present as sudden death making CAA the second most common cause of sudden cardiac death in individuals.

Can macrophages within the microenvironment of locally invasive rectal cancers predict response to radiotherapy?

Background: Only half of patients with locally invasive rectal carcinoma respond to short-course preoperative radiotherapy. A predictive test enabling better patient selection could avoid unneccessary radiation exposure to poor responders. Macrophages within the tumour immune microenvironment with tumoricidal M1 and tumour-protective M2 phenotypes could be modulating this response.