Intraventricular placement of a spring expander does not attenuate cardiac atrophy of the healthy heart induced by unloading via heterotopic heart transplantation.

An important complication of the prolonged left ventricle assist device support in patients with heart failure is unloading-induced cardiac atrophy which proved resistant to various treatments. Heterotopic heart transplantation (HTx) is the usual experimental model to study this process. We showed previously that implantation of the newly designed intraventricular spring expander can attenuate the atrophy when examined after HTx in the failing heart (derived from animals with established heart failure).

Isovolumic loading of the failing heart by intraventricular placement of a spring expander attenuates cardiac atrophy after heterotopic heart transplantation.

Cardiac atrophy is the most common complication of prolonged application of the left ventricle (LV) assist device (LVAD) in patients with advanced heart failure (HF). Our aim was to evaluate the course of unloading-induced cardiac atrophy in rats with failing hearts, and to examine if increased isovolumic loading obtained by intraventricular implantation of an especially designed spring expander would attenuate this process. Heterotopic abdominal heart transplantation (HT) was used as a rat model of heart unloading.

[Dynamic pulmonary densitography in the diagnosis of radiographically non-contrasting foreign bodies in the lower respiratory tract in children].

Densitographic examination of the regional pulmonary ventilation is a non-pretentious and non-invasive method which can be used even in very young children, which when aspiration of a non-contrasting foreign body is suspected can confirm by revealing localized bronchial obstruction the presence of a foreign body and determine its localization in the tracheobronchial tree. By repeated records of adequate ventilation at rest in all pulmonary fields it is possible with a minimal radiation load to rule out the suspicion and the child need not be subjected to an endoscopic examination. In five children aged 19 months to 13 years the usefulness of this procedure for the diagnosis of aspiration of a non-contrasting foreign body was proved, as the physical and skiagraphic finding was not convincing, there was discrepancy of anamnestic data and results of repeated skiagraphic examinations, negative auscultation and negative X-ray examination after an anamnestically obvious cse of aspiration, it ws used, for a more accurate localization of the aspired object, and to confirm localized obstruction of pulmonary ventilation in a chronic foreign body of plant origin in the airways.

[An unusual early complication of tonsillectomy].

The authors describe the observation of a localized tissue emphysema of the right cheek, which developed in an eight-year-old child as the early complication of tonsillectomy performed under local anaesthesia. In addition to reflections on the possible pathways of the gas from the tonsillar bed into interstitial spaces of the cheek, the authors draw attention also to possible concurrent penetration into the soft tissues of the neck and mediastinum.