Myasthenia gravis--an unexpected cause of respiratory failure and reversible left ventricular dysfunction after cardiac surgery.

We report a case of postpericardiotomy myasthenia gravis. A 68-year-old male patient without prior history of neuromuscular or autoimmune disorders presented with respiratory failure and severe left ventricular dysfunction four weeks after mitral valve replacement. Markedly elevated acetylcholine receptor antibodies were noted, and the patient responded promptly to immunologic therapy.

Resection of multifocal non-small cell lung cancer when the bronchioloalveolar subtype is involved.

Objective: Bronchioloalveolar lung cancer is commonly multifocal and can also present with other non-small cell types. The staging and treatment of multifocal non-small cell cancer are controversial. We evaluated the current staging of multifocal bronchioloalveolar carcinoma and the therapeutic effectiveness of resection when this tumor type is involved.

Aggressive management of lung donors classified as unacceptable: excellent recipient survival one year after transplantation.

Objective: A dire shortage of lungs for transplantation exists. We hypothesized that aggressive organ procurement organization management of lungs usually rated as unacceptable (ratio of Pao(2) to inspired oxygen fraction <150) might make them acceptable for transplantation. We also hypothesized that lungs from donors who died of trauma could be used for transplantation with recipient survival comparable with that seen with lungs from donors who died of nontraumatic causes.

Advantages of positron emission tomography over computed tomography in mediastinal staging of non-small cell lung cancer.

Background: New treatment algorithms in early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) involving preoperative chemotherapy require accurate clinical staging of the mediastinum. This study compares the accuracy of 2-[fluorine-18]fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) scanning with that of computed tomography (CT) scanning in the clinical staging of non-small cell lung cancer.

Materials And Methods: A retrospective review was performed on 52 patients with NSCLC who were evaluated with both CT and PET scans.