A promising strategy for the treatment of ischemic heart disease: Mesenchymal stem cell-mediated vascular endothelial growth factor gene transfer in rats.

Background: Treatment of ischemic heart disease (IHD) remains a worldwide problem. Gene therapy, and recently, cell transplantation, have made desirable progress. A combination of appropriate stem cells and angiogenic genes appears promising in treating IHD.

[Reoperation about recurrent heart valve disease in 221 cases].

Objective: To retrospectively review the experience of reoperation after closed mitral commissurotomy, valvuloplasty, perivalvular leakage and dysfunction of bioprosthetic valve in 221 cases.

Methods: Two hundred and twenty-one patients underwent heart valve reoperation from January 1998 to August 2005. Among them, 8 cases was emergency operation.

[Experimental study of differentiation of mouse bone marrow stromal stem cells into progenitor cardiomyocyte in vitro].

Objective: To investigate the possibility of inducing mouse bone marrow stromal stem cells (MSCs) into progenitor cardiomyocytes in vitro.

Methods: The MSCs were isolated by adhesion culture in vitro and flow cytometery was employed to identify the phenotypes of the cell passages. 5-azacytidine was used to induce the stem cells to differentiate into cardiomyotes in the experimental group, which were then detected by RT-PCR, semi-quantitative RT-PCR, Western-blot analysis, electron microscopy and immunofluorescence technique.

[Fontan operation with extracardiac conduit on beating hearts].

Objective: To evaluate the results of Fontan operation with extracardiac conduit on beating hearts.

Methods: Forty-two patients (31 males and 11 females) age ranged from 3 to 19 years old included in this study. There were 19 double inlet-ventricle, 10 tricuspid atresia, and 3 patients with mitral atresia, 10 patients with other complex congenital cardiac malformations.

Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for congenital heart disease.

We report our experience with video-assisted thoracoscopy in the surgical closure of heart septal defects. Nine patients, aged 10 to 26 years, underwent operation for closure of an atrial septal defect; and 3, aged 10 to 22 years, for closure of a ventricular septal defect. Three minithoracotomies with a diameter of 2 to 3 cm were made in the fourth intercostal space of the right parasternum and the fourth and seventh intercostal spaces of the right middle axillary line, respectively.

Evaluation of clinical treatment of atrial fibrillation associated with rheumatic mitral valve disease by radiofrequency ablation.

Objectives: The aim of this clinical study was to evaluate the effectiveness and advantages of the radiofrequency ablation maze procedure in the treatment of atrial fibrillation associated with rheumatic mitral valve disease.

Methods: We developed one kind of modified Cox III maze procedure with the use of radiofrequency ablation in the treatment of atrial fibrillation associated with rheumatic mitral valve disease and compared the outcome of 96 patients of atrial fibrillation associated rheumatic mitral valve disease who underwent radiofrequency ablation maze procedure plus mitral valve replacement with that of 87 patients with atrial fibrillation associated rheumatic mitral valve disease who had mitral valve replacement during the same interval by the same surgeon. The patients in the two groups were similar in age, gender, preoperative New York Heart Association class and duration of preoperative atrial fibrillation.