Cerebral perfusion during off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting.

Purpose: It is still unclear whether cerebral perfusion is affected during off-pump coronary bypass grafting (OPCABG). We investigated the predictive value of the neurobiochemical markers of brain damage and cerebral perfusion in relation to early neuropsychological outcome after OPCABG.

Methods: We performed OPCABG in ten patients (mean age, 63.

Autologous blood donation before elective off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting.

Purpose: Preoperative autologous blood donation reduces exposure to homologous blood transfusions in cardiac surgery. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the volume of predonated autologous blood needed to avoid homologous blood transfusion in scheduled off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting (off-pump CABG).

Methods: Fifty-six patients underwent scheduled off-pump CABG between January 1999 and December 2000.

Arch-first technique for aortic arch operation using branched graft.

To compare the arch-first technique with conventional aortic arch reconstruction 19 patients were randomly assigned to either procedure. Nine patients underwent the arch-first technique (group A) and 10 underwent the conventional technique (group B). There were no hospital deaths and no significant differences between groups in terms of intraoperative bleeding or the duration of operation cardiopulmonary bypass aortic crossclamping recovery from anesthesia or intensive care.

Surgical case of aortic root and thoracic aortic aneurysm after the Wheat procedure.

A 52 year-old man underwent aortic valve replacement and ascending aortic replacement (Wheat procedure) for acute dissection (Stanford type A) and aortic regurgitation (grade 3/4). At that time, the aortic root was slightly dilated at about 45 mm and the descending aorta was within a normal range at about 35 mm. Forty months after the initial operation, a follow-up chest enhanced computed tomography showed an aortic root aneurysm about 60 mm in diameter, a thoracic aortic aneurysm about 70 mm in diameter and chronic aortic dissection.

Aortic root replacement using composite valve graft in patients with aortic valve disease and aneurysm of the ascending aorta: twenty years' experience of late results.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical outcome of composite valve graft replacement in 193 patients with aortic valve disease and aneurysm of the ascending aorta from January 1980 to June 1999. The clinical outcome was compared between the patients diagnosed with Marfan syndrome (M group) and those without Marfan syndrome (non-M group), between those with aortic dissection (AD group) and without dissection (non-AD group), between 2 different techniques for coronary artery reattachment (modified Bentall [mB] and modified Piehler [mP]), and between the time of operation (1980-1989 and 1990-1999). Long-term outcome of this procedure was almost satisfactory with actuarial survival of 71.