Cardiac lipoma is rare and benign entities of heart, and often discovered after autopsy incidentally because most patients remain completely asymptomatic. The symptoms of cardiac lipoma depend on their location and size within the heart, such as dyspnea, chest pain, arrhythmia, and even sudden death. Surgical interventions usually have good results. Up till now, there has been no any relevant large-scale randomized controlled trial, and even no precise guideline for treatment. Surgical procedures often depend on patients' clinical manifestations and changes of hemodynamics in cardiac vessels in order to relief the symptoms as well as abort the progress of the disease. Therefore, early diagnosis and close follow-up are necessary for timely treatment. This article aims to summarize the imageological examinations for cardiac lipoma, including echocardiography, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging along with their characteristics and advantages, in order to get better clinical strategies.
Acute Stanford type A aortic dissection has the characteristics of acute onset, severe condition and high mortality. Once making a definite diagnosis, surgical treatment is needed as soon as possible. It is difficult for cardiac surgeons to treat the acute aortic dissection involving the aortic sinus, which is an important risk factor for death. Improving the surgical treatment for the aortic sinus can be a key to improving the prognosis. In this review, we will introduce the modified sandwich technique for acute Stanford type A aortic dissection and the prognosis, and summarize the experiences of different modified sandwich techniques. However, there is still no unified standardized technique in aortic root repair, and there is a lack of large studies with long-term follow-up, so it is necessary to further improve the aortic root repair techniques.
ObjectiveTo discuss the efficacy of type Ⅱ hybrid aortic arch repair for type A aortic dissection in patients of different age groups.MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 126 patients with type A aortic dissection admitted to the Fuwai Hospital between January 2016 and December 2018, including 78 (61.9%) males and 48 (38.1%) females, with an average age of 61.8±6.9 years. The patients were divided into an elderly group (≥60 years, n=82) and a non-elderly group (<60 years, n=44). The preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative data of patients in the two groups were compared.ResultsThe age between the elderly and non-elderly group was significantly different (65.9±4.1 years vs. 54.3±4.1 years, P<0.010), and no significant difference was found between the two groups in other preoperative baseline data. There were 6 (4.8%) patients of early death, 3 (2.4%) patients of stroke and 2 (1.6%) patients of paralysis. A total of 194 stents were implanted, and the average dimeter of the stents was 33.6±1.8 mm and the average length was 199.0±6.7 mm. The non-elderly group had shorter mechanical ventilation time (31.9±41.7 h vs. 61.0±89.2 h, P=0.043) and ICU stay time (77.8±51.4 h vs. 143.1±114.4 h, P<0.001) than the elderly group. There was no significant difference in in-hospital mortality rate, reoperation rate or survival rate between the two groups (P>0.05). Follow-up time was 1-43 (22.6±10.8) months, and 3 patients were lost. There were 104 (82.5%) patients of complete thrombus formation of false lumen in stent and endoleak was reported in 11 (9.2%) patients.ConclusionType Ⅱ hybrid aortic arch repair offers an alternative approach to acute type A aortic dissection with acceptable early and mid-term clinical effects. The non-elderly patients have a similar early treatment effect to the elderly patients, but have a better mid-term outcome.