J Cardiovasc Surg (Torino)
December 1994
Background: Decreased myocardial adenylate cyclase activity in response to guanine nucleotide stimulation has been recently demonstrated in denervated myocardium of transplant patients, suggesting that changes in left ventricular muscarinic receptors may occur.
Methods And Results: The concentration and affinity constants of myocardial muscarinic receptors were determined by positron emission tomography with 11C-labeled methylquinuclidinyl benzilate (MQNB), a specific hydrophilic antagonist, in six transplant patients 4.7 +/- 2.
Cardiac abscesses are observed in 20 to 30% of cases of infective endocarditis and in at least 60% of prosthetic valve endocarditis. The aortic valve ring is more frequently affected than the mitral valve ring. A cavity contiguous with a cardiac chamber forming a pseudo-aneurysm or a closed purulent collection, the abscess may extend to the neighbouring cardiac structures or to the ascending aorta.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn 18 consecutive transplant patients with normal coronary angiograms and without calcium blocker therapy, and in 20 controls, we measured the diameters of the left anterior descending artery using quantitative coronary angiography. Measurements were effected on the frames recorded 5 min or more after intravenous administration of 0.4 mg methylergometrine, and 2 min after subsequent 2 mg bolus intracoronary isosorbide dinitrate administration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBoth cytokines produced by activated monocytes and T cells and direct cell-to-cell contact with antigen-primed T cells during inflammatory reactions are known to induce the expression of several adhesion proteins on endothelial cells. In this prospective longitudinal study, we analyzed the expression of ELAM-1, VCAM-1, and ICAM-1 on myocardial allograft biopsy specimens taken from 16 cardiac allograft recipients either for routine monitoring or for the investigation of suspected rejection. Infiltrating T cells were identified using anti-CD3 antibodies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe diagnosis of acute rejection in heart allograft recipients receiving cyclosporine is still an important challenge. The poor diagnostic value of clinical signs and the ECG means that regular endomyocardial biopsies must be performed. Despite their diagnostic value during the first year after transplantation, endomyocardial biopsies are less sensitive there after and currently suffer from the lack of a universally accepted histological classification.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe results of coronary artery surgery in young adults have not been extensively studied. We analysed the results of 221 patients under 40 years of age operated between 1979 and 1989 at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. The patients were 200 men and 21 women with an average age of 36.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGraft coronary disease is a frequent and devastating complication with rapid development after heart transplantation. Until now, non-invasive and invasive methods have proved to be insensitive in the prediction and detection of the early stages of this disease. Conventional arteriography is considered as the only reliable means of diagnosis, but it remains insensitive in the accurate evaluation of the severity of graft coronary lesions (obliterative, diffuse and distal lesions).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Thorac Cardiovasc Surg
February 1992
After a long history of recurrent chronic pulmonary infections in a 25-year-old woman with Kartagener's syndrome, a heart-lung transplantation was performed. A modified surgical procedure was needed to perform transplantation because of the presence of a situs inversus, which is usually associated with bronchiectasis and sinusitis in this congenital syndrome. A large single atrium was created with both the right and left recipient atria used to facilitate anastomosis with the donor's right atrium.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAfter 22 years of clinical application in our unit, heart transplantation is now an accepted therapeutic method. Its indications are well established, its surgical technique and post-operative control and treatment well defined, mostly due to better diagnosis of the rejection episodes with the aid of echocardiography and endomyocardial biopsy and the use of cyclosporin. The results are remarkable with a survival rate of 70% at 5 years, and a full rehabilitation into family, social and often professional life for almost all the survivors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn order to assess the prevalence, causes, and severity of chronic liver dysfunction (LD) in heart transplant patients, 80 transplanted patients followed for 60 months (median; range, 1.5-98 months) were reviewed. Sustained liver dysfunction was found in 50 patients, occurring during the first year after heart transplantation in 42 (84%) of them.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImprovements in the management of patients with cardiac transplantation make it possible for these patients in the child-bearing age to expect a pregnancy. In fact, since 1987, several cases of pregnancy after cardiac transplantation have been reported. We report here two cases of successful pregnancy two years after cardiac transplantation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite the major improvement in immunosuppressive therapy, noninvasive detection of heart graft rejection remains a challenge. As lipoproteins are involved in several immunomodulation mechanisms, we studied their proton NMR spectra in plasma from patients after heart transplantation. NMR data were compared to clinical and functional evaluation of rejection process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTwenty patients who had undergone a heterotopic heart transplant were studied prospectively to determine the relationship between rejection and ventricular dysfunction assessed from gated blood-pool studies. A fully automated method for detecting ventricular edges was implemented; its success rate for the grafted left and right ventricles was 94% and 77%, respectively. The parameters, peak ejection and filling rates, were calculated pixel per pixel using a two-harmonic Fourier algorithm and then averaged over the ventricular region of interest.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChronic rejection, the most serious complication in long-term survivors of cardiac transplantation, was studied in 5 cardiac grafts obtained at retransplantation and in 15 post-mortem studies of patients who had survived 3 months to 10 years after transplantation. The usual clinical presentation was cardiac failure. Coronary angiography was performed in several cases and showed narrowing and non-opacification of small arteries often accompanied by thrombosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHeart transplantation is now an accepted therapeutic modality for end-stage heart disease. However, better immunosuppressive treatments and new methods to monitor rejection or detect early atherosclerosis must be developed to improve the long-term results after heart transplantation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince April 1986, 40 total artificial hearts (TAH) were implanted as a bridge to transplantation in our institution. In an attempt to identify factors affecting survival of TAH recipients we reviewed our experience over 1000 days of mechanical support. There was no postoperative bleeding requiring surgery nor were there any clinical episodes of thromboembolic complications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPatients with coronary disease associated with carotid artery stenosis and/or abdominal aortic aneurysm often raise problems of operative strategy; in particular, the order in which these lesions must be treated is a frequent source of controversy. We report the results of sequential or simultaneous combined surgery for multiple arterial lesions. Between 1979 and 1988, 65 patients with such lesions underwent either cerebral revascularization simultaneously with coronary bypass (n = 48) or repair of infrarenal aortic aneurysm a few weeks after myocardial revascularization (n = 17).
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