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Biomedical subjects

D Dadić

Publications and source records attributed to D Dadić.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Cardiac myxoma: diagnostic approach, surgical treatment and follow-up. A twenty years experience.

At the University Department of Cardiovascular Surgery in Zagreb, Croatia, we treated 81 patients with primary intracardiac myxoma, in a period from January 1975 to December 1994. There were 55 female and 26 male pts, in age from 1 month to 80 years, mean 46+/-15 years. Clinical manifestations varied from no symptoms and very poor or no clinical signs to various manifestations of chronic or acute congestive heart failure, syncope and arrhythmias with or without systemic findings such as high erythrocyte sedimentation rate, anaemia, leucocytosis, elevated gamma globulin, thrombocytopenia or low grade fever, as well as cerebrovascular accidents due to tumour embolization. Cardiac symptoms were predominant in 54 pts (66.6%) and cerebrovascular in 20 pts (24.7%). Seven pts (8.6%) were symptomless and discovered accidentally, mostly regarding on an unexplained heart murmur. In almost all the patients preoperative diagnosis of intracardiac myxoma was sufficiently established by echocardiography. The tumour was located in the left atrium in 62 pts (76.5%) and in the right atrium in 19 pts (23.5%). Delay from the onset of symptoms to the diagnosis was 6 months in average (range 10 days to 25 months). The average waiting for the operation was 9 days (range from 1 to 60 days). The echocardiographic diagnosis was confirmed during intraoperative examination followed by histological analysis. All pts underwent excision of myxoma using cardiopulmonary bypass with core and topical hypothermia and cold crystaloid cardioplegia. According to the additional preoperative and intraoperative findings, in 6 pts sinchronous mitral valve reconstruction, in 3 pts artificial mitral valve implantation and in 2 pts atrial wall reconstruction was performed. There was no perioperative mortality. After the operation, we could not evaluate all the patients long enough, mostly because of some paramedical circumstancies, such as war, migrations, etc. Twenty two pts undevent evaluation for at least 5 years after the operation. Among them there was no evidence of the tumour recurrence, 15 pts were asymptomatic and 7 had NYHA II class symptoms. For 17 pts with a left atrial myxoma preoperative and postoperative echocardiographic data were available for comparison, showing a significant reduction of the left atrial diameter (p<0.001) during the postoperative follow-up. Our data, presenting one of the biggest reports concerning cardiac myxomas, showed a broad spectrum of their clinical presentation, importance of echocardiography in diagnosing and postoperative follow-up and efficacy of a proper surgical intervention as a definite, curative therapy since there were no deaths and no significant cardiac dysfunction neither tumour reccurrence as well.

Croatia↗

Wound infection after median sternotomy during the war in Croatia.

From 1990 to 1994 at Clinical Hospital Center, Zagreb, 1904 median sternotomies were performed for cardiac operations. Patients shared the same intensive care unit (ICU) with the wounded persons, admitted to the hospital from battlefield. Infection developed in 124 patients, an incidence of 6.51%. Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was isolated from 90, methicillin resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis (MRSE) from 19, and gram negative bacilli (GNB) from 56 patients, Pseudomonas aeruginosa in 2, and Clostridium pneumoniae in 1 case. Ninety-six patients (5.04%) developed superficial localized infection of subcutaneous tissues and they were treated with frequent dressing changes with antibiotic-soaked gauze in combination with systemic antibiotics. Twenty-eight patients (1.47%) developed mediastinitis and sternal dehiscence. They were treated by operative debridement followed by reclosure of the sternum with continuous antibiotic irrigation. We obtained satisfactory results with our method of closure of sternum which is a modification of Robicsek's technique. Nine of them required further operation. In seven cases we performed muscle flaps and in two omentoplasty. One hundred and twenty patients were discharged in satisfactory condition. The uncontrolled mediastinal sepsis caused death in 4 patients. Higher infection rate after median sternotomy during 1991 and 1992 could be possibly explained with the war circumstances in Croatia, and especially with MRSA strain becoming endemic in surgical ICU.

Anti-Bacterial Agents↗

[Causes of complications in the early postoperative period after heart surgery].

In this study we have evaluated 32 patients who underwent open heart surgery with extracorporeal circulation. The aim of the study was to determine the influence of duration of surgical procedure, amount of bleeding after surgery, duration of assisted ventilation, need for mechanical and pharmacological assistance on the occurrence of complications in the early postoperative period. Sixteen patients who developed signs of systemic infection were evaluated. Other 16 patients had similar clinical characteristics and they were operated on the same day or within the same week as patients in the first group and they served as the controls. There was a statistically significant difference between those two groups in the duration of surgical procedure, amount of blood loss after surgery, amount of transfusions and duration of mechanical ventilation. The group of patients with systemic infection and other complications required in the majority cases left ventricular support and developed multiorgan system failure that resulted in a higher rate of mortality. In conclusion, this study shows that the causes of complications and systemic infection in the early postoperative period could be due to a greater blood loss following surgery, demand for blood transfusions and duration of mechanical ventilation.

Adult↗

[Management of surgery patients with implanted cardiac pacemakers].

Patients having cardiac pacemaker implanted may be subjected to various general surgery procedures. Application of electrosurgery for the purpose of resection and coagulation, provides a high frequency electric field which produces electric voltage on the electrodes of the pacing system. This voltage may be detected within the pacing system, and various arrhythmias can be provoked in correlation with underlying rhythm and mode of pacing. Preoperative patient control and proper pacemaker programming can prevent the pacing malfunctions due to the electrosurgery application. Appropriate positioning of the neutral electrode in relation to the pacing system avoids the electric fields intersection and decreases their interference.

Arrhythmias, Cardiac↗