Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to C G Sbokos.
Agenesis of the lung is rare. The cases of ten patients with this malformation are recorded and illustrated. Most had congenital malformation of other organs, especially the heart, as well. All had hypoplasia of the pulmonary artery or its branches. A pantaloon-like appearance of the trachea and the main bronchi on the bronchograms is described. Exercise tolerance was impaired in all patients.
Chronic constrictive pericarditis following traumatic hemopericardium has been reported in recent years, but it has not been reproduced experimentally in dogs. The present study attempted to produce posttraumatic constrictive pericarditis in 34 experimental animals. Hemopericardium by means of trauma to the epicardium or pericardium was produced by a sharp instrument or by the injection of autologous blood inside the pericardial sac. All animals were killed at intervals between 3 and 31 months. The animals in which hemopericardium was induced by injecting blood into the pericardial cavity showed no changes. The hemopericardium was completely resolved without noticeable residual trace. Animals having hemopericardium as a result of trauma evidenced a well-developed constrictive pericarditis that was documented clinically, hemodynamically, and histologically. These experimental findings indicate that chronic constrictive pericarditis may well be due to traumatic hemopericardium rather than to specific infection.
Primary tumours of the diaphragm are rare. Benign neoplasms occur more frequently than malignant ones. Among the latter, fibrosarcoma is the most common. A case of primary fibrosarcoma of the diaphragm is presented with long survival and recurrence 10 years after first surgical removal. At re-operation, a huge tumour was excised arising from a small part of the diaphragm. The histology of the recurrence was the same as the original tumour. The patient remained free of signs and symptoms nine months after the second operation.
During a two-year period (February 1973 to February 1975) 20 consecutive patients with post-infarction left ventricular aneurysm, seen at the Wessex Cardiac and Thoracic Centre, underwent aneurysmectomy with or without aorta-to-coronary artery saphenous vein bypass grafts, ventricular septal defect closure, or valve replacement. The diagnoses were established by clinical means, plain chest radiographs, left ventriculography, and selective coronary arteriography. The indications for surgery were uncontrollable congestive heart failure and angina, ventricular arrhythmias, or a rapidly growing aneurysm. Low cardiac indices or high left ventricular end-diastolic pressure were not considered to be contraindications to operation. Resection of the left ventricular aneurysm was performed with the use of normothermic cardiopulmonary bypass with haemodilution. In addition to the aneurysmectomy, four of these patients had concomitant closure of post-infarction ventricular septal defects; four had valve replacements; two had grafts to coronary arteries; and one had both replacement of the mitral valve and a right coronary vein graft. There were two hospital deaths (10%) and two late deaths (10%), making an overall mortality of 20%. All but one of the deaths were related to coronary artery disease. The survivors are active, and their rehabilitation was satisfactory. The longest survivor is doing well two years after left ventricular aneurysmectomy, ventricular defect closure, and tricuspid valve replacement. It is evident from our experience and from the reports of others that surgery has an established place in the management of post-infarction left ventricular aneurysm.
This report concerns a 2-year-old boy who had situs solitus and atrioventricular concordance with double-outlet left ventricle, L-malposition of the aorta, pulmonary stenosis, tricuspid stenosis, hypoplastic right ventricle, ventricular septal defect, and secundum atrial septal defect. These lesions were correctly diagnosed preoperatively, and "correction" was achieved by closing the atrial septal defect and tricuspid valve and performing a Fontan procedure using an antibiotic-sterilized aortic homograft for the conduit. The patient initially did well postoperatively but, despite vigorous diuretic therapy, developed large bilateral pleural effusions necessitating frequent aspiration. He died unexpectedly one month after the operation. Postmortem examination showed the repair to be intact. Despite his death, we are encouraged to consider this operation in such cases in the future.
Although Fontan and Baudet in 1971 described a physiological correction procedure for tricuspid atresia, very few successful operations have been reported. Two patients corrected 20 and 10 months ago at the Brompton Hospital are presented. These two patients exhibit many of the problems in the management of tricuspid atresia. The first patient aged 20 had undergone three previous palliative operations, a Blalock-Taussig shunt, a Glenn procedure, and an infundibular resection, and therefore presented a number of operative problems. In contrast the second patient, aged 8, whose condition had deteriorated considerably over the previous year, had had no previous surgical treatment. At operation he was found, in addition, to have a partial atrioventricular canal. Details of the operative procedures and the patients' postoperative course are described. The criteria for selection of patients for the Fontan operation are discussed as are the possible long-term hazards of homograft failure, atrial dysrhythmias, and hepatic dysfunction. The successful outcome of these two patients suggests that palliative surgery in infancy should allow for this form of correction in later life.
The problem of the patient who has had one operation for coarctation of the aorta and who then requires another because of a late complication at or near the coarctation site is a demanding one. The safety of aortic cross-clamping at the second operation depends on the adequacy or otherwise of the collateral circulation, and this in turn depends on the presence or absence of residual or recurrent aortic obstruction. Three illustrative cases are described in which there was complete, incomplete, and no aortic obstruction respectively at the time of reoperation, two of the cases presenting the additional complication of local aneurysm formation. The various aspects of management of such individuals are discussed, and the relevant literature has been reviewed in an attempt to provide a systematic approach to these difficult patients. The methods for assessing collateral circulation are both clinical and radiological with trial clamping of the aorta and pressure measurement as the most reliable ultimate test. A pressure of 50 mmHg in the distal aorta is accepted as indicating an adequate peripheral circulation, but it is recommended that the trial clamping should always include both the left subclavian artery and any particularly large local collaterals. The use of a perfusion technique to sustain the distal tissues is also recommended, although local bypass shunts have a place when their use is dictated in the interests of safety for the patient.
Pectus excavatum is a progressive congenital deformity for which surgical correction is an established procedure. The method of correction using a stainless steel retrosternal bar to maintain the sternum elevated is, in our experience, the most successful procedure. Successful surgical correction usually requires resection of all deformed costal cartilages with transverse osteotomy of the anterior table of the sternum and internal fixation using a bar anterior to the rib cage but behind the sternum. In the last 13 years 118 patients with this deformity have been evaluated and 72 patients have been surgically corrected by the described procedure. Of these 72 patients, 65 (90 percent) have had excellent or good cosmetic and functional results. The best results were obtained when the child was operated on between the ages of 6 and 10 years, the poorest results in those operated on under the age of 3 or over the age of 20. For a satisfactory result the bar must be left in for at least six months; the best results were obtained in those patients in whom the bar was left in for at least one year. No serious complications have followed the use of this technique.
The successful simultaneous closure of a persistent ductus arteriosus and mitral valve replacement in a 65-year-old woman with pulmonary hypertension is reported. The approach through a left thoracotomy gave good exposure and momentary cessation of cardiopulmonary bypass made ligation of the calcified ductus possible. Although this seems to be a rare association, when mitral valve disease is significant the simultaneous closure of the duct and mitral valve surgery is the treatment of choice.
The intraoesophageal rupture of a large thoracic aortic aneurysm is reported in a 49 year old man. He had been hypertensive for some years while the aneurysm increased in size. Although a graft was successfully inserted to repair the leak, infection from the oesophagus with candida albicans, subsequently led to secondary haemorrhage and death 17 days later. A plea is made for the earlier referral of patients with aneurysm prior to rupture, as the operative mortality rises markedly after rupture has occurred and in this case the situation was virtually irreparable.