• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.764-767
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• 2008

The use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation in cardiopulmonary resuscitation has remarkably increased in recent times. We report here on a case of successful resuscitation with using ECMO for a patient who suffered from repeated life threatening hemoptysis. We applied both veno-venous and veno-arterial ECMO to treat this pa tient's respiratory failure and cardiac arrest, respectively. By clinically judging the different cardiopulmonary conditions of this patient, we were able to apply the appropriate types of ECMO.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.221-225
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• 1998

From February 1996 to May 1997, 18 patients underwent mitral valve repair for mitral regurgitation. There were 9 male and 9 female patients aged from 19 to 68 years(mean, 53). Thirteen patients were in New York Heart Association(NYHA) class III and IV. The cause of mitral regurgitation was degenerative in 12 patients, rheumatic in 5 patients and infective in 1 patient. Fifteen patients were in Carpentier's functional classification II, 2 patients in Carpentier's class III and 1 patient in Carpentier's class I. Surgical procedures included prosthetic ring annuloplasty(16 cases), rectangular resection of posterior leaflet(15 cases), chordal shortening(5 cases), triangular resection of anterior leaflet(2 cases), commissurotomy(2 cases), partial transposition of posterior leaflet(1 case). These procedures were combined in most patients. There was no operative death. These patients have been followed from 1 to 15 months, mean of 6.7 months. There was one late death resulted from low cardiac output following mitral valve replacement. The function of the repaired valve in other 17 patients has remained satisfactory during the observed interval. We consider that mitral valve repair is highly satisfactory in patients with mitral regurgitation.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.467-473
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• 2010

Gangliosides are a major component of the plasma membrane of mammalian cells, which are directly involved in a variety of immunological events, including cell-to cell or cell-to-protein interactions. In this study, we investigated whether gangliosides, sialic acid-containing glycosphingolipids, are related to rejection during the xenotransplantation of NIH-miniature pig livers and hearts to humans. Both high performance thin-layer chromatography and immunohistochemistry analyses revealed that the expression of gangliosides in the liver tissue of NIH-miniature pigs was higher than that in the heart. Gangliosides GD3, GD1a, GD1b, GT1b and GQ1b were observed in both the liver and heart, whereas GQ1b was detected only in the liver, indicating that the ganglioside expression profiles are tissue specific. Moreover, other ganglio-series gangliosides, including GM3, were not detected in the livers and hearts of NIH-miniature pigs. Taken together, these results suggest that gangliosides may play important roles in immune responses in clinical xenotransplants of pig livers and hearts.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.598-606
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• 1997

Among 136 patients having undergone mitral valve surgery from September of 1994 through August of 1995 in Sejong Heart Institute, forty four patients(18 males, 26 females) underwent mitral valve reconstruction using prosthetic rings and their clinical results were evaluated. Patients'ages ranged from 5 to 63 years(mean age 38.2 years). Mitral valvular diseases were due to rheumatic origin in 30 patients(68%), degenerative in 13(30%), and congenital in one patient(2%). Mitral regurgitation(MR) was in 33 patients(76%), mitral stenosis 2(5%), and mitral stenoinsufaciency 9 patients(19%). The patients were divided into Carpentier's functional groups : type I, 5 patients(11%) : type I, 24 patients(55%) ; type III, 4 patients (9%) i and mixed(II + III), 11 patients(25%). Average number of anatomic lesions of mitral valve per patient was 3.7. The techniques included prosthetic ring amluloplasty(44 patients, 32 Carpentier ring and 12 Duran ring), leaflet mobilization(24, 55%), chordae shortening(23, 52%), chordae transposition(23, 52%), commissurotomy(16, 35%), leaflet resection(9, 20%), papillary muscle splitting(8, 18%), and chordae reimplantation(1, 2%). Average 3.4 surgical procedures were applied on mitral valve per patient. There were two hospital mortality and one reoperation due to development of MR(grade III) after 2 weeks. During the mean follow up of 12 months, patients improved in terms of functional class of the New York Heart Association, which was mean 3.0 preoperatively and 1.3 postoperatively. Doppler echocardiographic studies showed adequate valve area(2.07$\pm$0.11 cm2 mean $\pm$standard error), improved ventricular contractiliy in 41 patients(93%), ab ence of MR in 23(53%), trace MR in 18(42%), and garde II MR in 2 patients(5%).

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.725-728
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• 2010

Rhabdomyoma is the most common benign cardiac neoplasm in neonates. Most patients with rhabdomyoma experienced spontaneous regression. Yet some of them need surgical therapy because of hemodynamic problems of the heart such as arrhythmia, outflow tract obstruction and valvular dysfunction. We found multiple masses in both ventricles on the patient's fetal echocardiogram. Heart failure caused by severe left ventricular outflow tract obstruction quickly presented after birth. The mass interfering with the outflow tract was resected via the transaortic approach at the first day of birth. Postoperative echocardiography showed complete release of the outflow tract obstruction. He was discharged on the postoperative day 8. During the 3 years of follow up, we found that the sizes of the remnant masses had gradually decreased.

• 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.2
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• pp.200-204
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• 1997

This is a report of a successful management of a patient with infective endocarditis involving native aortic valve, mitral valve, tricuspid valve, and Interventric lar septum. A 16 year-old patient who underwent VSD patch closure, and aortic valvuloplasty at the age of 1 1 years showed Intractable congestive heart failure during antibiotics treatment for infective endocarditis. Operative findings revealed that there were large defect along the previous patch, aortic regurgitation with multiple perforations and vegetations, mitral regurgitation with vegetation, aortic paraannular abscess, interventricular myocardial abscess, and tricuspid regurgitation with perforations and vegetations. We reconstructed the interventricular defect with Dacron patch extending to the aortic valve annulus after radical debridement of all infected or devitalized tissues, and could implant aortic valve by anchoring to the reconstructed Dacron patch. Mitral valve was replaced and tricuspid valve was repaired with patient's own pericardium. The patient was discharged after antibiotics treatment for 6 weeks and in good condition without any sequelae for 12 months.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.40 no.8
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• pp.552-557
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• 2007

Background: B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) is a cardiac hormone that is primarily synthesized by the ventricular cardiac myocytes. Increased plasma BNP levels have been observed in patients suffering with congestive heart failure, ventricular hypertrophy and myocaridits and also during heart transplantation rejection. We investigated the serum BNP level as a predictive marker for rejection after heart transplantation. Material and Method: To test the usefulness of measuring the BNP level in cardiac transplant patients, consecutive blood samplings for BNP, right ventricular endomyocardial biopsies, hemodynamic measurements and transthoracic echocardiogram were all done in 10 such patients between January 2004 and August 2005 at the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery in Asan Medical Center. Two groups were identified with using the median value: the low BNP group (n=28, BNP: ${\le}290$ pg/mL) and the high BNP group (n=29, BNP: >290 pg/mL). We retrospectively analyzed rejection, the ejection fraction, tricuspid regurgitation, left ventricular hypertrophy, the pulmonary capillary wedge pressure and the right atrial pressure between the 2 groups. Result: There were no differences in age, gender, rejection, the ejection fraction, tricuspid regurgitation, left ventricular hypertrophy and the right atrial pressure between the 2 groups (p>0.05). However, a higher pulmonary capillary wedge pressure and a higher mean pulmonary atrial pressure were observed in the high BNP group (p<0.05). Further, BNP has linear correlation with the pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (r=0.590, p<0.001). Using the cut-off value of 620 pg/mL, the BNP predicted a high PCWP (>12 mmHg) with a sensitivity of 83.3% and a specificity of 91.1% (AUC: $0.900{\pm}0.045$, p<0.001). Conclusion: The BNP level after heart transplantation does not show any significant correlation with rejection, yet it might be a predictive marker of ventricular diastolic dysfunction.

• Neonatal Medicine
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.153-157
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• 2011

Pneumopericardium is a rare form of neonatal air leakage. Tension pneumopericardium is much more infrequent, but can cause a cardiovascular deterioration with high mortality up to 80% and neurodevelopmental morbidity in half of the cases. We report two cases of preterm infants who successfully recovered from tension pneumopericardium that developed during mechanical ventilator assistance. The patients displayed a sudden increase in oxygen demand and subsequent cardiovascular deterioration. Immediate needle aspiration of the pneumopericardium performed after checking X-ray images rescued each of patient. Since the clinical symptoms are non-specific, clinicians' suspicion is most important when patients show sudden refractory cardiovascular collapse, especially in ventilator-assisted neonates. This life threatening complication demands instant diagnosis and intervention.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.36 no.9
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• pp.633-637
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• 2003

Sometimes temporary tricuspid valve detachment is applied for closure of ventricular septal defect to facilitate good exposure and avoiding ventriculotomy, but most surgeons hesitate to do it in the fear of tricuspid incompetence. Moreover in recent textbooks the technique of temporary tricuspid detachment is only described for exceptional situations and is not further analysed or commented on. Material and Method: Retrospective study was carried out in all 11 patients operated between 1985 to 1994, with preoperative data and postoperative course and recent echocardiographic and electrocardiographic data. Result: On the basis of the area of the color flow jet, tricuspid valvular regurgitation was graded as none in 9 and trivial in 2, and significant electrocardiographic heart block did not developed in any patients. Conclusion: Takedown and attachment of the tricuspid valve is a safe and effective technique that improves exposure for ventricular septal defect, and does not adversely effect tricuspid valve competence and electrocardiography.