• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.40 no.12
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• pp.817-824
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• 2007

Background: There are two choices for heart valve replacement-the use of a tissue valve and the use of a mechanical valve. Using a tissue valve, additional surgery will be problematic due to valve degeneration. If the risk of additional surgery could be reduced, the tissue valve could be more widely used. Therefore, we analyzed the risk factors and mortality of patients undergoing repeated heart valve replacement and primary replacement. Material and Method: We analyzed 25 consecutive patients who underwent repeated heart valve replacement and 158 patients who underwent primary heart valve replacement among 239 patients that underwent heart vale replacement in out hospital from January 1995 to December 2004. Result: There were no differences in age, sex, and preoperative ejection fraction between the repeated valve replacement group of patients and the primary valve replacement group of patients. In the repeated valve replacement group, the previously used artificial valves were 3 mechanical valves and 23 tissue valves. One of these cases had simultaneous replacement of the tricuspid and aortic valve with tissue valves. The mean duration after a previous operation was 92 months for the use of a mechanical valve and 160 months for the use of a tissue valve. The mean cardiopulmonary bypass time and aortic cross clamp time were 152 minutes and 108 minutes, respectively, for the repeated valve replacement group of patients and 130 minutes and 89 minutes, respectively, for the primary valve replacement group of patients. These results were statistically significant. The use of an intra aortic balloon pump (IABP) was required for 2 cases (8%) in the repeated valve replacement group of patients and 6 cases (3.8%) in the primary valve replacement group of patients. An operative death occurred in one case (4%) in the repeated valve replacement group of patients and occurred in nine cases (5.1%) in the primary valve replacement group of patients. Among postoperative complications, the need for mechanical ventilation over 48 hours was different between the two groups. The mean follow up period after surgery was $6.5{\pm}3.2$ years. The 5-year survival of patients in the repeated valve replacement group was 74% and the 5-year survival of patients in the primary valve replacement group was 95%. Conclusion: The risk was slightly increased, but there was little difference in mortality between the repeated and primary heart valve replacement group of patients. Therefore, it is necessary to reconsider the issue of avoiding the use of a tissue valve due to the risk of additional surgery, and it is encouraged to use the tissue valve selectively, which has several advantages over the use of a mechanical valve. In the case of a repeated replacement, however, the mortality rate was high for a patient whose preoperative status was not poor. A proper as sessment of cardiac function and patient status is required after the primary valve replacement. Subsequently, a secondary replacement could then be considered.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.292-298
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• 2009

Background: Surgery for mitral valve disease in children carries both technical and clinical difficulties that are due to both the wide spectrum of morphologic abnormalities and the high incidence of associated cardiac anomalies. The purpose of this study is to assess the outcome of mitral valve surgery for treating congenital mitral regurgitation in children. Material and Method: From 1997 to 2007, 22 children (mean age: 5.4 years) who had congenital mitral regurgitation underwent mitral valve repair. The median age of the patients was 5.4 years old and four patients (18%) were under 12 months of age. 15 patients (68%) had cardiac anomalies. There were 13 cases of ventricular septal defect, 1 case of atrial septal defect and 1 case of supravalvar aortic stenosis. The grade of the preoperative mitral valve regurgitation was II in 4 patients, III in 15 patients and IV in 3. The regurgitation was due to leaflet prolapse in 12 patients, annular dilatation in 4 patients and restrictive leaflet motion in 5 patients. The preoperative MV Z-value and the regurgitation grade were compared with those obtained at follow-up. Result: MV repair was possible in all the patients. 19 patients required reduction annuloplasty and 18 patients required valvuloplasty that included shortening of the chordae, papillary muscle splitting, artificial chordae insertion and cleft closure. There were no early or late deaths. The mitral valve regurgitation after surgery was improved in all patients (absent=10, grade I=5, II=5, III=2). MV repair resulted in reduction of the mitral valve Z-value ($2.2{\pm}2.1$ vs. $0.7{\pm}2.3$, respectively, p<0.01). During the mid-term follow-up period of 3.68 years, reoperation was done in three patients (one with repair and two with replacement) and three patients showed mild progression of their mitral reguration. Conclusion: our experience indicates that mitral valve repair in children with congenital mitral valve regurgitation is an effective and reliable surgical method with a low reoperation rate. A good postoperative outcome can be obtained by preoperatively recognizing the intrinsic mitral valve pathophysiology detected on echocardiography and with the well-designed, aggressive application of the various reconstruction techniques.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.35 no.11
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• pp.792-798
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• 2002

Although there is a controversy on the optimal timing for active infective endocarditis(IE), recently good results of early surgical intervention have been published. Herein, we analyzed the results of surgery for active IE according to the duration of preoperative antibiotic treatment. Material and Method : Retrospectively, we analyzed 51 patients who underwent operation for active IE at the department of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery of Samsung medical center from Mar. 1995 to Oct. 2001. Male to female ratio was 39:12, mean age of the patients was 44.5$\pm$17.8 years(range : 13~74). Infected valves were mitral valve in 17(33.3%), aortic valve in 15(29.4%), mitral and aortic valve in 12(23.5), and tricuspid valve in 5(9.8%) cases. Among them, prosthetic valve endocarditis was present in 10(19.6%) cases. Infecting organism was Staphylococcus in 19(37.3%), Streptococcus in 17(33.3%), Enterococcus in 3(5.9%), fungus in 3(5.9%), and other bacteria in 5(9.8%) cases. Organism was not isolated in 6(11.8%) cases, and two organisms were isolated in 4(7.8%) cases. Dividing these patients into two groups according to the duration of preoperative antibiotic treatment(A: less than 7 days, B: more than 8 days), we compared the surgical results between the two groups. Result : There were 16 cases in group A and 35 in group B. Annular reconstruction was performed in 10(62.5%) cases in group A and 10(28.6%) cases in group B, which has statistically significance(p＜0.05). There was one early death in group B. Forty nine patients(96.1%) except two were followed up with mean follow-up duration of 28.7 $\pm$ 23.6 months. Endocarditis was recurred in one in group A, and two in group B. Three late deaths occurred in group B. Recurrence rate and survival were not statistically different between the two groups. Conclusion : Early surgery for active IE showed good results as the result of that which was performed after prolonged antibiotic treatment; therefore, we believe that early surgery for active If could effectively eradicate the infection.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.34 no.12
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• pp.901-908
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• 2001

Background : Coronary artery bypass graft(CABG) in patients with advanced left ventricular dysfunction has often been regarded as having high mortality rate, despite the great improvement in operative result of CABG. With recent advances in surgical technique and myocardial protection, surgical revascularization improved the symptom and long-term survival of these high risk patients more than the medical conservative treatment. Material and Methold : Clinical data of 31(4.1％) patients with preoperative ejection fraction less than 30% among 864 CABGs performed between January 1995 and March 1999 were retrospectively analyzed and pre- and postoperative changes of the ejection fraction on echocardiography were analyzed. There were 26 men and 5 women. The mean age was 60.7 years(range 41 to 72 years). History of myocardial infarction(30 cases, 98％) was the most common preoperative risk factor. There were seven irreversible myocardial infarction on thallium scan. Most patients had triple vessel diseases(26 cases, 84％) and first degree of Rentrop classification(16 cases, 52％) on coronary angiography. The mean number of distal anastomosis during CABG was per patient was 4.9${\pm}$0.8 sites in each patient. In addition to long saphenous veins, the internal mammary artery was used in 20 patients. Total bypass time was 244.7${\pm}$3.7 minutes(range, 117 to 567 minutes), and mean aortic cross-clamp time was 77.9 ${\pm}$ 1.6 minutes(range, 30 to 178 minutes). There were five other reparative procedures such as two left ventricular aneurysrmectomy, two mitral repair, and one aortic valve replacement. There were twelve postoperative complications such as three cardiac arrhythmia, two bleeding(re-operation), one delayed sternal closure, eleven usage of intra-aortic balloon counterpulsation for low cardiac output. Two patients died, postoperative mortality was 6.5% . Twenty-nine patients were relieved of chest pain and left ventricular ejection fraction after operation was significantly higher(38.5${\pm}$11.6%, p 0.001) as compared with preoperative left ventricular ejection fraction(25.3${\pm}$2.3%). The follow up period of out patient was 25. 3 months. Conclusion: In patients with coronary artery disease and advanced left ventricular dysfunction, coronary artery bypass grafting can be performed relatively safely with improvement in left ventricular function, but it will be necessary to study long term results.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.1330-1340
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• 2012

In this paper, a new algorithm is proposed for the heart valves stenosis region detection using heart sounds. Many researches for detecting primary components or removing heart murmurs have been studied, but their performances are degraded at abnormal heart sounds such as aortic stenosis and mitral stenosis because of large heart murmurs. In this paper, heart murmur detection method is proposed based on noise intensity function. The proposed noise intensity function detect the primary components S1, S2, then set session up using S1, S2. And then noise intensity function was computed using autocorrelation value of each session. The proposed noise intensity function estimated noise intensity of each sessions and detected heart murmurs. According to simulation results, the proposed algorithm has better performance than former study for detecting heart valve stenosis region.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.30 no.9
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• pp.891-898
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• 1997

Between May 1984 and January 1996, 130 patients were replaced cardiac valve using 150 St. Jude Medical prosthetic valves(42 aortic, 68 mitral, 20 aortic and mitral valve replycements). Follow-up was 97.6% complete. The early mortality rate was 5.4%, and late mortality rate was 4.9%. The valve-related late mortality rate was 3.3%. Of late complications, there were 6 anticoagulant related hemorrhages, 4 thromboembolisms and 1 paravalvular leakage. Linearized rates of late complication and valve-related late mortality were as follows: total late complications, .1.68o per patient-year: anticoagulant related hemorrhages, 0.92% per patient-year: thromboembolism, 0.61% per patient-year: paravalvular leakage, 0.15% per patient-year: reoperation, 0.15% per patient-year: and valve-related late mortalities, 0.61% per patient-year. Actuar al event free rate at 10 years was 87.4 $\pm$ 3.2%. The overall actuarial survival rate was 90.4$\pm$2.7% at 5 years, 87.5$\pm$3.3% at 10 years. Ninety eight percent of the survivors were in the New York Heart Association functional class I or II at the end of follow-up. There was significant improvement of cardiothoracic ratio. In conclusion, this study suggests the excellent durability of the St. Jude Medical Heart valve and remarkable functional benefit for the majority of the patients. However, prosthesisrelated complications are still common. Outcome is strongly related to the patient's preoperative cardiac condition and to the adequacy of anticoagulation control.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.619-626
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• 2010

Background: The indications and the optimal time of surgery of infective endocarditis are controversial. We report the surgical results of our hospital during the last 10 years with literature review. Material and Method: Between January 2000 and December 2009, we enrolled 23 infective endocarditis patients who underwent surgery, and analyzed retrospectively. In the preoperative blood culture, 8 cases (34.8%) were positive. The average preoperative antibiotics treatment period was $20.78{\pm}16.00$ days. There were 12 (52.2%) urgent operations. The average follow up period was $49.26{\pm}33.21$ months. Result: 20 mechanical valve replacements were performed, 9 in aortic position, 8 in mitral position and 3 in the both positions. The other procedures were one mitral valvuloplasty, one infected myxoma extirpation, and one infected pacemaker lead removal with debridement. The average period of postoperative intravenous antibiotic treatment was $24.39{\pm}15.98$ days. There were 5 complications, including 2 cases of postoperative bleeding, one postcardiotomy syndrome, one cerebral ischemia, and a low cardiac output syndrome. There were statistically significant postoperative improvement in NYHA class, left ventricle end diastolic/end systolic volume, and left atrium size (p-value < 0.05). Conclusion: We could obtain the satisfactory results without any moftalities by using sufficient preoperative antibiotics in hemodynamically stable patients, and by prompt surgery in unstable patients.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.38 no.7 s.252
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• pp.496-500
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• 2005

There was no difference between the bileaflet mechanical valves on the midterm and longterm clinical outcome. We reviewed the hemodynamic comparison between recently available mechanical valves by Doppler Echocardiography. Material and Method: We retrospectively reviewed 396 postoperative hemodynamic datas (EOA, MDPG, and MSPG) by doppler echocardiography in 345 patients. Mechanical valves from 5 venders (Sorin Bicarbon, SJM, ATS, On-X, and Edward MIRA) were compared. There were 232 valves in mitral position, 162 in aortic, and 2 in tricuspid. Result: There were 178 men (mean age; $50.6\pm13.9$ years old) and 167 women $(52.6\pm,4.6)$. MDPG/EOA of 27 mm in mitral position was Sorin; $4.2\pm1.5 mmHg/3.0\pm0.9cm^2,\;SJM;\;2.3\pm1.2/3.5\pm0.6$. In 29mm, Sorin, SJM, ATS, On-X, MIRA revealed $3.4\pm1.2/3.1\pm0.6,\;3.3\pm1.1/2.7\pm0.4,\;3.8\pm0.8/3.2\pm0.6,\;4.0\pm3.0/3.1\pm0.9,\;2.9\pm0.9/3.0\pm0.8$ In 31mm, Sorin, SJM, ATS, MIRA revealed $3.9\pm1.9/2.9\pm0.6,\;3.5\pm1.2/3.0\pm0.6,\;3.4\pm0.8/2.8\pm0.2,\;3.7\pm1.5/2.7\pm0.7$. In 33mm, Sorin, SJM, MIRA revealed $4.4\pm0.9/2.5\pm0.4,\;3.4\pm1.5/3.3\pm0.5,\;4.7\pm2.4\3.0\pm0.3$. MSPG/EOA of 19mm aortic position was Sorin, SJM, ATS, On-X, MIRA $18.0 mmHg/1.2cm^2,\;25.6\pm8.7/1.1\pm0.3,\;25.9\pm12.6/1.2\pm0.3,\;23.0/1.3,\;27.9\pm7.1/1.2\pm0.1$ in that order. In 21mm, SJM, ATS, On-X, MIRA revealed $18.3\pm6.7/1.5\pm0.5,\;13.7\pm2.1/1.7\pm0.3,\;17.0/1.4,\;17.1\pm5.5/1.8\pm0.5$. In 23mm Sorin, SJM, ATS, On-X, MIRA revealed $14.0\pm4.6/1.7\pm0.6,\;12.8\pm3.2/2.0\pm0.2,\;16.8\pm12.2/2.1\pm0.9,\;14.0/1.5,\;15.0\pm5.5/1,8\pm0.5$. In 25mm, SJM and MIRA revealed $14.0\pm5.1/1.8\pm1.0,\;11.0/2.3$. There was no statistically significant difference in these values between the venders given the same position and size. 2 redo valve replacements were performed, 1 due to severe hemolysis in ATS and 1 due to leaflet immobilization in SJM. Conclusion: Postoperative hemodynamic comparison by doppler echocardiography shows no statistically significant difference between recently available mechanical valves in this country.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.31 no.11
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• pp.1031-1036
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• 1998

Background: Medtronic-Hall mechanical valve is a world widely using prosthesis. But, in Korea, the clinical result from Medtronic-Hall valve replacement is not frequenthy available. Materials and methods: From March 1986 to May 1990, 50 patients underwent valve replacement surgery with Medtronic-Hall valve at Pusan National University Hospital. Seventeen were male and thirty three were female and ra nging in age from 16 to 70 years of age(mean=35 years). Results: The causes of valvular lesion were rheumatic in 43 patients, bicuspid aortic valve in 3 patients, degenerative lesion in three patients and bacterial endocarditis in one patient. The operative procedures were mitral valve replacement(MVR) in 38, aortic valve replacement(AVR) in 5 and double valve replacement(DVR) in 7. The most commonly used valve size was 21mm in AVR, 29mm in MVR. Concomitant surgical procedures were performed in 15 patients; left atrial thrombectomy in 9, left atrial auricle obliteration in 6 and tricuspid annuloplasty in 5(Kay: 2, DeVega: 3). New York Heart Association functional class was mostly Class Ⅲ or Ⅳ(91.5%) preoperatively and ClassⅠor Ⅱ(87.2%) after operation. The findings of postoperative echocardiogram of LAD, LVESD, LVEDD were reduced compared with preoperative period and ejection fraction was increased compared with preoperative period. Postoperative complications were massive bleeding in three, low cardiac output syndrome in two, thromboembolism in one and fulminant hepatitis in one patient. There were three hospital deaths and their causes were low cardiac output syndrome in two and rupture of left ventricle in one patient. The 5 year survival rate was 93.65±0.71% and 10 year actuarial survival rate was 88.27±6.42%. Conclusions: Medtronic-Hall mechanical valve has low valve related complication rate. It's durability and hemodynamic performance is comparable to other mechanical valves.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.34 no.9
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• pp.692-697
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• 2001

Background: The left main coronary artery surgical angioplasty has become the choice of surgical procedure in isolated LM disease. We have performed 22 cases of LMCA surgical angioplasy since 1996. We report the immediate and long term result of the surgical angioplasty with their postoperative angiography. Material and Method: Between July 1994 and October 2000, 22 patients(11 men and 11 women) were subjected to surgical patch angioplasty of the LMCA, 1 patient had an additional angioplasty performed on the proximal right coronary artery. The LMCA was approached anteriorly with or without transection of the main pulmonary artery(21 cases), and in a patient who had undergone an aortic valve replacement, LMCA was approached superiorly with transection of the ascending aorta. Additional grafting was required in 5 cases. The on-lay patch was used with autologous pericardium in 6 cases and bovine pericardium in 16 cases. Result: There was no operative mortality. There was 30~50% stenosis of the anastomosis site in 3 cases at the postop. coronary angiography. Coronary angiography was reperformed in 5 cases between 5th months and 15th months postoperatively. There was 40~60% stenosis of the anastomosis site in 2 cases. There was one death at 42nd months postoperatively but the cause was unknown. No patient complained of angina with a mean follow up of 48.$\pm$22.5 months. Conclusion: There were only several coronary angiographic results in long term follow-up but we had relatively good clinical results for LMCA surgical angioplasty in the immediate and long term. The excellence of LMCA surgical angioplasty needs the result of the long term follow-up.