A new method of conduction system staining.

Visualization of the conduction bundle is advantageous in the prevention of surgical trauma to the conduction system during open-heart surgery. Because vital staining using an iodine starch complex has been known to result in tissue damage, we have evaluated the effects of iodine gas on the specialized conduction system. The conduction bundle was stained, well enough to be identified, with iodine tincture, with Lugol's solution, and with iodine gas.

Present status of thromboembolic complications in patients with prosthetic heart valves.

When the incidence of thromboembolism (TE) as a complication was investigated in 171 patients with prosthetic heart valves using pyrolytic carbon, 10 cases were identified in a mean follow-up period of 2.43 years. Of these 10, two patients had died.

[Aneurysm of a diverticulum of the ductus arteriosus in an adult: a case report].

An aenurysm of a diverticulum of the ductus arteriosus in a 33-year-old man was presented. The chest radiography revealed a mass obscurring the aortic window above the hilus of the left lung. His blood pressure was 130/70 mmHg, and there was no difference in pressures between the upper and lower or between the right and left extremities.

A new approach to defining regional work of the ventricle and evaluating regional cardiac function: mean wall stress-natural logarithm of reciprocal of wall thickness relationship.

A new method of defining regional mechanical work done by a unit volume of myocardium of the ventricular wall and evaluating regional cardiac function is proposed. This method uses the relationship between mean wall stress (sigma) and the natural logarithm of the reciprocal of wall thickness (ln(1/H)). 1/H at a point on the epicardial surface is proportional to the regional area (A) of the ventricular wall containing that point.