Banking of cryopreserved heart valves in Europe: assessment of a 10-year operation in the European Homograft Bank (EHB).

Background And Aim Of The Study: The preparation, banking and distribution of cryopreserved heart valves has been carried out at the European Homograft Bank (EHB) in Brussels without interruption since January 1989. We present an assessment of the Bank's activities during this 10-year period.

Methods: Heart valve donors aged <62 years form three categories: multiorgan donors with non-transplantable hearts; recipients of cardiac transplantation; and non-beating heart cadavers with a warm ischemia time of less than 6 h.

[Primary Aspergillus endocarditis. Apropos of a case and review of the international literature].

The authors report a case of primary aspergillus endocarditis with endophthalmitis and vertebral osteomyelitis. No underlying disease and no predisposing factors were found. Valve replacement plus combined antifungal chemotherapy proved to be effective as the patient is asymptomatic 18 months after the first symptoms.

Cold blood cardioplegia and warm cardioplegic reperfusion in heart transplantation.

The major cause of early death after heart transplantation is graft failure. In 99 consecutive heart transplantations two protocols of myocardial protection were employed. In group 1 (n = 38) initial cold crystalloid cardioplegia combined with cold saline storage and peroperative surface cooling was used.

End-to-side aortoprosthetic anastomoses: long-term computed tomography assessment.

Fifty-two asymptomatic patients underwent routine computed tomographic evaluation of aortobifemoral bypass grafts implanted end-to-side on the aorta five to 10 years after operation. Anteroposterior diameters were measured at the level of the stem and the limbs of the graft, the aortoprosthetic anastomosis, and the infraanastomotic aorta. The stems of the prostheses were found to be dilated between 30 and 110% (mean 58%) of initial values.

[Cystic adventitial disease of the popliteal artery].

This strange lesion has been described as colloid degeneration, adventitial cyst, adventitial cystic disease, cystic degeneration of the popliteal artery. The disease was also observed in other localizations and the first case, which was described in 1946 by Atkins and Key (I) concerned an iliac artery. Bizard (2) in 1978 reported a case of the common femoral artery.