Cardiac myxoma: diagnostic approach, surgical treatment and follow-up. A twenty years experience.

At the University Department of Cardiovascular Surgery in Zagreb, Croatia, we treated 81 patients with primary intracardiac myxoma, in a period from January 1975 to December 1994. There were 55 female and 26 male pts, in age from 1 month to 80 years, mean 46+/-15 years. Clinical manifestations varied from no symptoms and very poor or no clinical signs to various manifestations of chronic or acute congestive heart failure, syncope and arrhythmias with or without systemic findings such as high erythrocyte sedimentation rate, anaemia, leucocytosis, elevated gamma globulin, thrombocytopenia or low grade fever, as well as cerebrovascular accidents due to tumour embolization.

[Causes of complications in the early postoperative period after heart surgery].

In this study we have evaluated 32 patients who underwent open heart surgery with extracorporeal circulation. The aim of the study was to determine the influence of duration of surgical procedure, amount of bleeding after surgery, duration of assisted ventilation, need for mechanical and pharmacological assistance on the occurrence of complications in the early postoperative period. Sixteen patients who developed signs of systemic infection were evaluated.

[Hemodynamic effects of captopril, an ACE inhibitor, in patients after aortocoronary bypass].

During the last few years, the use of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors in the treatment of patients with cardiovascular diseases has been increasing. Captopril is the earliest oral ACE inhibitor and was marketed in 1977. The adverse effect most undesirable with vasodilators, particularly in patients with heart disease, is a reflex tachycardia.