Mid-term results of endoscopic mitral valve repair in combination with endocardial or epicardial ablation.

Objective: Concomitant ablative therapy for atrial fibrillation can be effective at converting patients to normal sinus rhythm and at maintaining a regular rhythm for at least 5 years. We provide herein a comparison of an endocardial approach using Cryoablation with an epicardial approach using a suction-based RF ablation technology.

Methods: Between February 2004 and January 2009, 325 patients underwent an endoscopic mitral valve repair.

Description of a reusable device for the temporary stenting of the open sternum.

Background: Myocardial oedema, non-surgical bleeding and the use of mechanical assist devices following major heart surgery sometimes prevent primary closure of the sternum.

Method: We describe a reusable sterile device for temporarily stenting the open sternum for safety.

Results: The sternal stent was used in 32 patients for a mean time of 2 days.

[Cor triatriatum--a rare cause of pulmonary hemosiderosis].

Pneumological examinations including open lung biopsy performed on a male patient of 30 years of age suffering from severe respiratory distress that disabled him, as well as from massive recurring attacks of hemoptysis, resulted in suspicion of idiopathic pulmonary hemosiderosis (also known as Ceelen-Gellerstedt's syndrome). Diagnosis of cor triatriatum followed by surgery was arrived at only after a pulmonary oedema had developed and after other rare cardiac diseases had been considered. This rare congenital malformation--which occasionally becomes clinically manifest only in the adult--should be suspected in differential diagnosis of respiratory distress and a sometimes also life-threatening hemoptysis.

Highly acute course of ruptured papillary muscle of the tricuspid valve in a case of blunt chest trauma.

The sudden onset of tricuspid insufficiency following a blunt chest trauma is extremely rare. We operated on a young woman in a state of severe shock following a riding accident, in whom complete severing of the papillary muscle of the posterior tricuspid leaflet had occurred. The valvuloplasty operation itself and the postoperative course ran smoothly, apart from a late pericardial tamponade which required surgical revision.