[Study of the ototoxicity of amikacin and netilmicin using provoked acoustic oto-emissions and high-frequency audiometry].

To compare the ototoxicity of amikacin and netilmicin, tone audiometry, high-frequency audiometry, early auditory evoked potentials, and evoked otoacoustic emission testing were used to evaluate 30 patients (15 under amikacin and 15 under netilmicin). Ototoxicity was not significantly different in the two groups.

Epilepsy and cardiac surgery.

The complex and sometimes severe metabolic, haemodynamic or blood modifications induced by cardio-pulmonary bypass (CPB), can result in alteration of cerebral electrogenesis and even in epileptic paroxyms. Nineteen epileptics (EP) and 41 risk patients (PR), 31 with a family history of epilepsy (FHE) and 10 prone to epilepsy (PPE) were operated upon under CPB; 6 of the EP and 2 of the PPE had abnormal but no paroxymal EEG features during operation. None of the other EP or PR showed any epileptic abnormalities.

[Osler aortic aneurysm in isthmic coarctation. Clinical and angiographic aspects and postoperative results].

A case of probable infective aneurysm complicating isthmic coarctation of the aorta, is reported. On radiology, the aneurysmal mass seemed to have developed in less than two years. However, it was not possible to culture the causative organism.

[Unusual recording of a giant pulmonary A wave on echocardiography in pulmonary atresia with an intact septum].

An infant with cyanotic congenital heart disease underwent M mode echocardiography, cardiac catheterisation and angiography. A diagnosis of pulmonary atresia with intact ventricular septum was made. Echocardiography showed an average sized right ventricle with tricuspid valve thickening, as previously described in this condition.

[Coronary circulation in abnormal left coronary artery arizing from the pulmonary artery trunk, before and after correction].

Two patients, both of them young girls, aged 14 and 15, had this condition and were studied by haemodynamic methods preoperatively and during the seventh postoperative month. In both cases, the retrograde perfusion of the left coronary vascular tree was shown up well, demonstrating the "coronary steal" and a left-right shunt of 2 volumes. In both cases also, the postoperative coronary arteriogram showed a return of the left coronary circulation to normal, disappearance of the large anastomatic vessels, and above all a return to normal dimensions of the right coronary artery, previously extremely tortuous and dilated.

[Cardiac surgery in Jehovah's witnesses. Apropos of 47 cases].

47 cardiac defects in Jehova's witnesses were operated on without using any blood during the operation. In 9 cases the patients were under 15 years of age. 7 cases were of congenital heart defects in which the operation could be carried out with the heart still beating or by a closed heart technique: 4 of these were adults and 3 were children.

[Combined surgery of the cardiac valves and the coronary arties (author's transl)].

The authors report on an experiment with 17 cases, in which valvular substitution and bypass were combined. This type of operation carries a greater operative risk than that of separate operations, but a complete surgical correction can be obtained. The mortality rate diminishes with the improvement of the surgical team's experience.

[Medium term results of commissurotomies and mitral plasties in open heart surgery. Apropos of 50 cases].

The authors report on 50 cases of mitral commissurotomies in open heart surgery. The operations were performed during a short by-pass with hemodilution. The procedure involved the sub-valvular system in more than half the cases.

[Funnel-chest and cardio-pericardial pathology, apropos of 2 cases treated by pericardioplasty and parietal remodelling].

Numerous pathogenic hypotheses were put forward to explain the Funnel Chest. It is possible that the origin of this malformation is not related to an involvement of the thoracic wall or the diaphragm, but rather to a negative pressure behind the sternum which is attracted by inspiratory movements, this resulting in, and aggravating the malformation. This negative pressure of the anterior mediastinum would result from an absent cardiac mass which was displaced leftward, favoured by an enlarged and flaccid pericardial sac.