Cavernous haemangioma of anterior mitral valve leaflet: diagnostic utility of 3D echocardiography.

Mitral valve (MV) haemangiomas are rare primary cardiac tumours which may cause progressive cardiac failure as well as sudden death. We present a case of a 44-year-old woman referred for surgical correction of symptomatic severe mitral regurgitation. Preoperative two-dimensional transthoracic and transoesophageal echocardiography (TOE) were reported as demonstrating complex bi-leaflet prolapse causing severe mitral regurgitation.

Operator and Institutional Requirements for Transcatheter Mitral Valve Therapies in Australia: a CSANZ and ANZSCTS Position Statement.

This expert Position Statement is a description of the requirements for Accreditation for transcatheter mitral valve therapy (TMVT) in Australia. The requirements include the need for a multidisciplinary Heart Team review of individual cases, mandatory reporting of outcome data to a national TMVT Registry, and accreditation of individuals and institutions by the Conjoint Accreditation Committee, the assigned accreditation authority.

Risk stratification using serum lactate in patients undergoing surgical pulmonary embolectomy.

Background: Surgical pulmonary embolectomy (SPE) has been around since the early days of cardiac surgery. But with the increase in thrombolytic and intervention options, indications of SPE have been limited. Literature suggests that risk stratification has been a key step in getting good results.

Outcomes of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery lobectomy in septuagenarians.

Background: Spread of technology and increased surveillance have led to more patients with lung cancers being identified than ever before. Increasingly, patients from the elderly population are referred for surgery; however, many studies do not focus on this patient group. We reviewed the outcomes of septuagenarians who underwent lobectomy via an open thoracotomy (OT) or video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) approach to determine whether the VATS approach would result in superior post-operative outcomes.