Predictors of sudden cardiac death after Mustard or Senning repair for transposition of the great arteries.

Objectives: The goal of this research was to identify predictors for sudden death (SD) in patients with transposition of the great arteries (TGA) who have undergone atrial inflow repair.

Background: Sudden death is the most common cause of late death after atrial inflow repair of TGA. Little is known about the predictors of SD.

Austrian syndrome in a child-aortic valve endocarditis following pneumococcal meningitis.

A 7-year-old girl with a previously healthy heart underwent a Ross procedure after pneumococcal sepsis, meningitis and aortic valve endocarditis with extensive para-valvular involvement. While pneumococcal infections including respiratory tract infections, bacteraemia and meningitis are common in childhood, endocarditis caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae occurs rarely. Pneumococcal meningitis and aortic valve endocarditis is a known combination, described as Austrian syndrome.

Echocardiographic assessment of preload conditions does not help at the neonatal intensive care unit.

To determine the value of noninvasive assessment of right ventricular preload in neonates, a prospective unblinded study was performed. Thirty-seven neonates without heart disease (median birth weight 1390 g, range 900 to 4400) were studied at the neonatal intensive care unit, comparing directly measured central venous pressure (CVP) and two-dimensional echocardiographic measurement of the maximum and minimum diameter of the inferior vena cava and calculated vena cava index (VCI). CVP was higher in conventionally ventilated and high-frequency oscillatory ventilated neonates than in those breathing spontaneously ( p < 0.