Analysis of risk factors and establishment of a risk prediction model for cardiothoracic surgical intensive care unit readmission after heart valve surgery in China: A single-center study.

Background: Valvular heart disease is one of the most frequent and challenging heart diseases worldwide. The incidence of complications and cardiothoracic surgical intensive care unit (CSICU) readmission after cardiac valve surgery is high. Because CSICU readmission is costly and adversely impacts the quality life, reducing the risk of CSICU readmission has become one of the main focuses of health care.

Simvastatin reduces myocardial injury undergoing noncoronary artery cardiac surgery: a randomized controlled trial.

Objective: Myocardial injury during cardiac surgery is a major cause of perioperative morbidity and mortality. We determined whether perioperative statin therapy is cardioprotective in patients undergoing noncoronary artery cardiac surgery and the potential mechanisms.

Methods And Results: One hundred fifty-one patients undergoing noncoronary artery cardiac surgery were randomly assigned to either a statin group (n=77) or a control group (n=74).

[Prognostic factors of myasthenic crisis after extended thymectomy in patients with generalized myasthenia gravis].

Objective: To investigate the prognostic factors of myasthenic crisis after extended thymectomy in patients with generalized myasthenia gravis (MG).

Methods: Extended thymectomy was performed on 176 patients with generalized MG, 74 males and 102 females, aged 4 - 67, of which 36 experienced postoperative myasthenic crisis and required prolonged mechanical ventilation. The relations among the age, sex, preoperative course of disease, pathologic type of thymus, Osserman classification, history of infection during 1 month preoperatively, history of myasthenic crisis 1 month preoperatively, thymoma, preoperative daily dose of pyridostigmine, preoperative steroid use, operation time, intra-operative blood loss, and intra-operative pleura injury and postoperative myasthenia crisis were analyzed.

Surgical intervention for advanced valvular heart disease in 227 cases.

Background: Although the results of surgical treatment in cardiac valve disease continue to improve, the postoperative mortality rate and the rate of complications in patients with advanced valvular heart disease (AVHD) are still very high. We did this retrospective study to summarize the surgical experience of heart valve replacement for patients with AVHD and discuss effective ways to improve the surgical outcome.

Methods: From January 1994 to October 2003, surgical procedures of heart valve replacement were performed on 227 (136 men and 91 women) patients with AVHD in our Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery.