Preoperative management of deteriorating mitral regurgitation and heart failure with continuous positive airway pressure.

A 75-year-old Japanese woman with acute mitral valve prolapse and regurgitation, that developed one month previously, suffered from intractably progressive congestive heart failure (CHF). However, the emergent surgery was declined, and pharmacological treatment was discontinued due to hypotension and malignant arrhythmia. She was treated with 5-8 cmH2O of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) to manage CHF and Cheyne-Stokes respiration during the preoperative period of five weeks, after which plastic surgery of the mitral valve was successfully performed.

[Complete atrioventricular block in Duchenne muscular dystrophy].

We report a case of complete atrioventricular (AV) block in a 40-year-old patient with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). While he was bed-ridden and required mechanical ventilation, his cardiac involvement was mild. He had the deletion of exon 45-52 in the dystrophin gene.