Unexpected bioprosthetic mitral valve thrombus during left ventricular assist device implantation.

Acute bioprosthetic valve thrombosis can occur after surgery and sometimes cause hemodynamic instability and cardiogenic shock. Risk factors for bioprosthetic valve thrombosis are hypercoagulability, atrial fibrillation, atrial dilatation, low cardiac function, and lack of anticoagulation therapy. The authors present a case of severe mitral stenosis due to bioprosthetic valve thrombus.

Choice of desflurane or propofol for the maintenance of general anesthesia does not affect the risk of periprocedural myocardial damage in patients undergoing transfemoral transcatheter aortic valve implantation.

Purpose: This study aimed to reveal whether the occurrence of periprocedural myocardial damage (PMD) decreases in patients who received volatile anesthetics to maintain general anesthesia compared with those who received propofol during transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI).

Methods: We included one hundred and forty adult patients who underwent transfemoral TAVI under general anesthesia from January 2015 to March 2017 in this single-center retrospective review. We compared the rate of patients who developed PMD between those who received desflurane (Group D, n = 72) and propofol (Group P, n = 68) for anesthetic maintenance.

Perioperative factors related to the severity of vocal cord paralysis after thoracic cardiovascular surgery: A retrospective review.

Background: Vocal cord paralysis (VCP) is a rare complication of thoracic cardiovascular surgery. In severe cases, life-threatening airway obstruction may occur.

Objective: To evaluate the incidence and severity of VCP among patients who underwent thoracic cardiovascular surgery and to identify possible risk factors.

A longer total duration of rapid ventricular pacing does not increase the risk of postprocedural myocardial injury in patients who undergo transcatheter aortic valve implantation.

Rapid ventricular pacing (RVP) is used during transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). RVP disturbs myocardial oxygen balance, and when prolonged, it may cause procedure-related myocardial injury (PMI). This study investigated whether a longer duration of RVP increased the occurrence of PMI or worsened long-term mortality after TAVI.

[Anesthetic Management for Heart-Lung Transplantation Report of 2 Cases from Japan].

Heart and lung transplantation (HLT) is the surgical procedure for congenital heart disease and cardiomy- opathy with pulmonary hypertension. HLT is rare in the world and has been performed only twice until October, 2014 at our hospital in Japan. We report the anesthetic management for HLT.

Thoracic Paravertebral Block for Perioperative Analgesia in the Surgical Management of Left Ventricular Assist Device Infections.

Left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation is increasingly being used as a bridging therapy to heart transplantation. Infection is a major complication in patients with implanted LVADs, and it is associated with short- and long-term mortality. Surgical management for infection control is sometimes necessary; however, providing pain management during the surgical procedures is challenging.

The efficacy of continuous subcostal transversus abdominis plane block for analgesia after living liver donation: a retrospective study.

Purpose: Postoperative pain management for living liver donors has become a major concern as a result of the increasing number of living liver donations. Transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block has been known to provide effective analgesia for abdominal surgery. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of ultrasound-guided continuous subcostal TAP block as a part of a multimodal analgesic regimen in comparison with conventional intravenous (IV) fentanyl-based analgesia in living liver donors.

Intraoperative Right Ventricular Fractional Area Change Is a Good Indicator of Right Ventricular Contractility: A Retrospective Comparison Using Two- and Three-Dimensional Echocardiography.

Objective: Intraoperative two-dimensional echocardiography is technically challenging, given the unique geometry of the right ventricle (RV). It was hypothesized that the RV fractional area change (RVFAC) could be used as a simple method to evaluate RV function during surgery. Therefore, the correlation between the intraoperative RVFAC and the true right ventricular ejection fraction (RVEF), as measured using newly developed three-dimensional (3D) analysis software, was evaluated.

[Survey of smoking status among preoperative patients and characteristics of smokers].

Smoking is an independent risk factor for both pulmonary and nonpulmonary perioperative complications. For safer anesthetic management, it is important to encourage and support the cessation of smoking in the preoperative period. As a first step to design a preoperative smoking cessation program, we conducted a survey of preoperative patients about smoking status and characteristics of smokers at an outpatient clinic for an anesthesiology department.