[Pulmonary actinomycosis. Clinical case and review of the literature].
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to R Limet.
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We report the case of an infected aneurysm of the abdominal aorta in a 18 month-old child, discovered by routine palpation of the abdomen during hospitalization for pneumonia. Ultrasonography and arteriography showed a 6 cm aneurysm of the abdominal aorta beginning distal to the renal arteries which occluded the right common iliac artery. The aneurysm was treated by interposing a 6 mm Gore-Tex graft between the infrarenal aorta and the aortic bifurcation. Pathologic examination of the aneurysmal wall demonstrated a leukocytic infiltrate and the presence of encapsulated Gram positive organisms. Arterial aneurysms are exceedingly rare in children. Their etiology is varied: infection, connective tissue disease, trauma, inflammatory arterial disease or other rare diseases such as tuberous sclerosis, neurofibromatosis, or Behçet's disease.
A 32-year-old woman had acute anterior myocardial infarction after a mild chest trauma (automobile accident). Unstable angina recurred shortly after admission, and extensive dissection of the left coronary artery was demonstrated. Medical therapy including systemic fibrinolysis was started but clinical stabilization and good long-term result was achieved only by aortocoronary bypass grafting.
Five cases of Marfan's syndrome with cardiovascular lesions are presented. Among these five patients, two with type I aortic dissection, one with true aneurysm of the ascending aorta and one with aortic regurgitation underwent composite grafting of the ascending aorta according to the Bentall technique. The fifth patient died preoperatively, due to extensive dissection of the transverse aorta. Marfan's syndrome is transmitted in an autosomal dominant manner. Fifty percent of the patients die at a mean age of 32 years, and 95 p. 100 of the deaths are caused by cardiovascular lesions. These lesions predominantly affect the left cardiac valves (aortic or mitral regurgitation) and the ascending aorta. Except in emergencies, replacement of the ascending aorta by a composite graft must be envisaged in subjects with Marfan's syndrome presenting with aortic regurgitation and dilatation of the aortic root.
Thromboendarterectomy is sometimes performed in association with coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). Right coronary arteries and severely narrowed coronary arteries mainly undergo thromboendarterectomy, but perioperative acute myocardial infarctions (AMI) are possible complications. One hundred seventy-six consecutive patients with rest and stress thallium-201 scintigraphy and angiography were studied before and after surgery. To compare patients with and without thromboendarterectomy, 48 patients who had undergone thromboendarterectomy and whose characteristics matched closely those of patients who had not were selected. Twenty patients had previous AMI before CABG in each group. Analysis accounted for the severity of vessel lesion (complete or incomplete) and for the patency of the graft and of the native coronary artery. In these 96 patients, graft patency was lower than in the overall group and similar among patients with and without thromboendarterectomy among the 56 patients without previous AMI. In patients with previous AMI and thromboendarterectomy, however, reperfusion was achieved more often through the native vessel than through the graft. New AMI or residual ischemia occurred in 32% of the areas undergoing thromboendarterectomy and in only 5% of the standard grafts (p less than 0.001). Best results were obtained in patients with incomplete occlusion after AMI. Patients without previous AMI had worse results. Thus, thromboendarterectomy can yield 64 to 75% good results in selected subgroups when CABG is otherwise impossible, but should be avoided in mildly or moderately stenotic arteries perfusing noninfarcted myocardium.
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The efficacy of coronary bypass grafting obviously being linked to graft patency, it is compulsory to look for any innovation that could improve the patency rate. Ticlopidine, an antiplatelet drug, was tested against placebo in a double-blind trial: 173 patients (475 grafts) subjected to venous coronary artery bypass grafting were randomly treated with ticlopidine (250 mg twice daily) or placebo from the second postoperative day for 12 months. Graft patency was assessed by digital angiography on days 10 (99.4% of the patients), 180 (98.2%), and 360 (91.7%). The effect of treatment on platelet aggregation and bleeding time were measured concomitantly; a clear-cut effect was demonstrated at each interval. Intention-to-treat graft-by-graft analysis shows that ticlopidine significantly reduced the graft occlusion rate on day 10 (7.1% versus 13.4%, p less than 0.05), day 180 (15.0% versus 24.0%, p less than 0.02), and day 360 (15.9% versus 26.1%, p less than 0.01). Sequential grafts to the left anterior descending coronary artery, with side-to-side anastomosis to diagonal branch(es), are less frequently occluded than individual grafts. On the contrary, grafts to endarterectomized vessels occlude more frequently. Individual patient-by-patient analysis shows that patency of all grafts at each study time, is more frequent in the ticlopidine group. The difference is significant when one considers patients without sequential or endarterectomized grafts. The difference is also present at each study time: day 10 (84.4% versus 66.7%, p less than 0.05), day 180 (74.4% versus 52.3%, p less than 0.05) and day 360 (75.0% versus 52.5%, p less than 0.05). Results are even more impressive if one excludes from analysis the four patients in the ticlopidine group in whom administration of the drug was delayed. This supports previous suggestions that early therapy is necessary. These results show that graft occlusion occurs mainly in the first 6 postoperative months. The incidence of occlusion is significantly reduced by ticlopidine therapy.
A 55-year-old patient with primary pulmonary leiomyosarcoma was treated by pneumonectomy. The diagnosis was established by histology of the operative piece. Bronchoscopy and cytology of expectorations were negative. This rare tumor (fewer than 100 cases described) differs from bronchial carcinoma by its method of spread, mainly hematogenic, and its better prognosis. clinical and radiographic data do not provide differential diagnoses. Treatment is essentially surgical since the tumor is only weakly radio-sensitive and responds poorly to chemotherapy.
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Ten patients with cardiac tamponade as the first presentation of cardiothoracic malignancy were evaluated from May, 1976 to June, 1982. The best treatment of this particularly rare neoplastic manifestation is still being debated. The clinical data of our ten patients were compared to those previously described in the literature. They were first treated by pericardiocentesis and creation of a pericardial window, without recurrence of significant pericardial effusion. Our data suggest that the addition of radiotherapy to the other therapeutic methods (surgery and chemotherapy) may improve survival.
In 41 patients who underwent coronary bypass surgery, creatine kinase (CK)-MB mass concentration was repeatedly measured in serum during and after the intervention using a new two-site immunoenzymetric assay (IEMA). Serum CK-MB activity was determined with the use of four different techniques: immunoinhibition, immunoinhibition-immunoprecipitation, column chromatography and electrophoresis. Myoglobin (Mb) was also measured in each specimen by radioimmunoassay. In the 33 patients who followed a completely uneventful postoperative course, the cumulated CK-MB release was, on the average, 12.2-fold less than after acute myocardial infarction. The CK-MB peak concentrations using the IEMA were 33 +/- 3 micrograms/l (X +/- SEM) and occurred 6.4 +/- 0.5 h after the intervention was started; CK-MB levels had decreased to 2.9 +/- 0.4 micrograms/l at the end of the first postoperative day. The evolution of the CK-MB concentration was parallel to that of the enzyme activity. The serum Mb maximum concentrations (518 +/- 39 micrograms/l) were reached after 3.3 +/- 0.1 h. The other eight patients developed perioperative myocardial infarction (PMI); in this group, the cumulated CK-MB release was higher, and the serum CK-MB postoperative curves were of three different types. The patients with delayed CK-MB peaks (type I pattern) or sustained elevations (type III) of this isoenzyme also showed increased serum Mb levels at the end of the first postoperative day. The PMI patients with early (10 h) CK-MB elevations (type II) did not demonstrate abnormal serum Mb levels.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
To study the effect of lung bypass on the production of prostaglandin E2, prostacyclin, and thromboxane A2, we measured simultaneously arterial and venous plasma concentrations of prostaglandin E2, 6-keto-prostaglandin F1 alpha (stable metabolite of prostacyclin), and thromboxane B2 (stable metabolite of thromboxane A2) before, during, and after cardiopulmonary bypass. Seventeen patients (age range 46 to 69 years) undergoing aorta-coronary bypass grafts were investigated. The prostaglandin E2 production rose sharply immediately after the onset of bypass (baseline: 9.7 +/- 2.9 pg/ml to 85 +/- 16.6 pg/ml in venous and 87 +/- 12 pg/ml in arterial plasma, p less than 0.03) and rapidly decreased after pulmonary reperfusion (53 +/- 6.4 and 57 +/- 20 pg/ml, respectively, in venous and arterial plasma at the end of bypass). The increase in prostaglandin E2 was influenced by the heart-lung machine itself (as demonstrated by a closed "bypass" circuit) and by lung bypass. Pulmonary metabolism of prostaglandin E2 was maintained after bypass. The prostacyclin production rose significantly at the beginning of bypass (154 +/- 26 pg/ml venous prebypass level to 361 +/- 94 pg/ml after aortic clamping, p less than 0.03). Prostacyclin decreased progressively during rewarming of the patient, pulmonary reperfusion, and discontinuation of bypass. When prostacyclin decreased, thromboxane B2 production rose significantly and reached peak arterial levels when the lungs were reperfused (112 +/- 33 pg/ml prebypass levels to 402 +/- 101 pg/ml, p less than 0.01). Except for prostaglandin E2, there were no significant differences between arterial and venous plasma levels of these substances. The same prostanoids were also measured in five patients undergoing major orthopedic operations, and no significant changes in prostanoids were observed. Our data demonstrate significant production of prostaglandin E2 in the systemic circulation during cardiopulmonary bypass in humans. They further indicate that lung bypass disturbs the plasma prostaglandin/thromboxane balance.