Objective To summarize safety and effectiveness of cryomaze ablation procedure concomitant with valve surgery. Methods We retrospectively investigated the clinical data of 62 patients (24 males and 38 females) with mean age of 49.4±14.2 years who underwent cryomaze ablation procedure concomitant with valve surgery in our hospital from August 2013 through July 2015. The heart rhythm of the patients after surgery was supervised by 12-leads electrical cardiogram respectively. Results The rate of sinus rhythm restored right after surgery was 98.4%. The rate of sinus rhythm restored at the time of discharge was 93.4%. The rate of sinus rhythm restored 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, 18 months after surgery was 90.2%, 87.3%, 85.0%, 83.3% respectively. The one-year post-operation rate of sinus rhythm restored for the group of right minimal invasive thoracoscopic assisted mitral valve surgery was 90.5%. Longer duration for atrial fibrillation (>7 years) was a risk factor for the reoccurrence of atrial fibrillation 1 year after surgery (P<0.05). Conclusion Cryomaze ablation procedure concomitant with valve surgery is quite effective in treatment of rheumatic valve disease and atrial fibrillation. This approach is associated with fewer complications, comparable atrial fibrillation reoccurrence for short-term follow-up.
Objective To analyze the effects of systematic lymph node dissection (SLND) and lobe-specific lymph node dissection (L-SND) on perioperative and long-term outcomes of patients with clinicalⅠA (cⅠA) stage lung adenocarcinoma. Methods A retrospective analysis was done on the patients with cⅠA stage lung adenocarcinoma who received thoracoscopic radical resection admitted to the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University from January 2013 to August 2016. Propensity score matching was conducted to eliminate the biases. The recurrence-free survival was compared between the two groups after matching. Perioperative parameters and postoperative complications were also analyzed. Results A total of 725 patients were enrolled, including 252 males and 473 females, with a median age of 62.0 (31.0-69.0) years. There were 228 patients in the L-SND group and 497 patients in the SLND group. After matching, there were 211 patients in each group and no statistical difference in the incidence of postoperative complications (10.9% vs. 13.7%, P=0.374), identification of metastatic positive lymph nodes (12.3% vs. 9.0%, P=0.270), or recurrence-free survival (P=0.492) were found between two groups, whereas the operation time (163.9±39.4 min vs. 135.4±32.4 min, P＜0.001), intraoperative blood loss [100.0 (20.0-800.0) mL vs. 100.0 (10.0-400.0) mL, P＜0.001], intubation time [4.0 (1.0-18.0) d vs. 4.0 (1.0-9.0) d, P＜0.001] and hospital stay (12.3±3.3 d vs. 10.8±2.4 d, P=0.003) in the SLND group were found to be significantly higher or longer than those in the L-SND group. Conclusion L-SND has a similar efficiency to SLND in terms of postoperative complications, pathological lymph node metastasis, and recurrence-free survival, as well as significant advantages in reducing intraoperative blood loss, and shortening operation time, intubation time and length of hospital stay. Therefore, L-SND can be recommended to replace SLND as a method for lymph node resection in patients with cⅠA stage lung adenocarcinoma.
Objective To study the efficacy and safety of combined anti-tuberculosis regimen containing bedaquiline in the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Methods A total of 69 MDR-TB patients treated by joint regimen combined bedaquiline with other anti-tuberculosis drugs between March 2018 and August 2019 in Public Health Clinical Center of Chengdu were taken as the trial group, and 60 MDR-TB patients received treatment without bedaquiline between June 2016 and December 2017 in the same hospital were taken as the control group. The efficacy and safety of the two groups were compared. Results The 69 patients in the trial group included 44 males and 25 females, aged from 21 to 63 years, with an average of (34.6±11.0) years; 58 patients (84.1%) completed the 24-week treatment with bedaquiline, while 11 patients did not complete the treatment, including 3 deaths (4.3%), 1 loss of follow-up (1.4%), 1 withdrawal from the study (1.4%), and 6 discontinuation due to adverse events (8.7%). Among the 54 patients with positive results of tuberculosis on baseline sputum culture, 49 transformed to negative results within 24 weeks of treatment (the negative conversion rate was 90.7%), and the median negative conversion time was 13.0 weeks. The 60 patients in the control group included 45 males and 15 females, aged from 16 to 66 years, with an average of (35.5±13.2) years. Among the 53 patients with positive results of tuberculosis on baseline sputum culture, 30 transformed to negative results within 24 weeks of treatment (the negative conversion rate was 56.6%), and the median negative conversion time was 12.0 weeks. The negative conversion rate of sputum bacteria in the trial group was significantly higher than that in the control group (χ2=16.133, P<0.001). The most common adverse reactions in the trial group were liver function abnormalities (42 cases, 60.9%), prolonged QTc interval (37 cases, 53.6%), electrolyte disturbances (20 cases, 29.0%), and blood system damage (20 cases, 29.0%). In the 37 patients who experienced prolonged QTc interval, there were 8 patients with QTc intervals≥500 ms and 29 patients with QTc intervals ≥450 ms and <500 ms, with a median occurrence time of 16.0 weeks, among whom 25 patients experienced prolonged QTc interval in 4-48 weeks after the withdrawal of bedaquiline. Conclusion The negative conversion rate of tuberculosis sputum culture of patients with MDR-TB treated by bedaquiline combined with other anti- tuberculosis drugs is high, but electrocardiogram should be closely monitored during and after the treatment in order to guard against the potential cardiac toxic effects of bedaquiline.