The thoracoplastic approach to chest wall reconstruction: preliminary results of a multidisciplinary approach to minimize morbidity.

Background: Chest wall reconstruction remains challenging because of the variable nature of the defect. Muscle-sparing approaches have been described but are not widely applied today. The authors reviewed an institutional experience with chest wall reconstruction and describe the thoracoplastic approach, which aims to optimize flap selection.

Discordance between microcirculatory alterations and arterial pressure in patients with hemodynamic instability.

Purpose: Recent studies reported that microcirculatory blood flow alterations occur in patients with circulatory shock independent of arterial pressure but typically lack baseline microcirculatory data before the insult and after recovery. We selected cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) patients with expected and rapidly reversible hemodynamic instability to test the hypothesis that microcirculatory alterations can occur independent of mean arterial pressure (MAP).

Methods: Prospective observational study using sidestream darkfield videomicroscopy to measure sublingual microcirculatory flow preoperative (PRE), postoperatively after CPB (POST), and after recovery (REC).

Continuous cardiac index monitoring: A prospective observational study of agreement between a pulmonary artery catheter and a calibrated minimally invasive technique.

Introduction: Continuous cardiac index (CCI) monitoring can provide information to assist in hemodynamic support. However, pulmonary artery catheters (PAC) pose logistic challenges in acute care settings. We hypothesized that CCI measured with a calibrated minimally invasive technique (LiDCO/PulseCO, UK) would have good agreement with the PAC.

Image-based monitoring of one-lung ventilation.

Background And Objectives: With the increasing demand for one-lung ventilation in both thoracic surgery and other procedures, identifying the correct placement becomes increasingly important. Currently, endobronchial intubation is suspected based on a combination of auscultation and physiological findings. We investigated the ability of the visual display of airflow-induced vibrations to detect single-lung ventilation with a double-lumen endotracheal tube.