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Biomedical subjects

V DeCaprio

Publications and source records attributed to V DeCaprio.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

Therapeutic embolization with detachable silicone balloons. Early clinical experience.

A recently developed percutaneous transcatheter technique for selectively occluding arteries with detachable silicone balloons was applied in four patients. Uncontrollable hemorrhage from carcinoma of the cervix was controlled by selective uterine artery occlusion in one patient. Life-threatening hemorrhage from cystic fibrosis in another patient was controlled by balloon occlusion of a bronchial artery. A patient with hypernephroma and another with right ischial fibrous histiocytoma each had preoperative occlusion of the arteries supplying the neoplasms to reduce operative blood loss and to obviate the need for surgical ligation of the internal iliac artery in the latter patient. Detachable balloon embolization techniques represent a nonoperative method for permanently occluding arteries without the risks of inadvertent embolization.

Adenocarcinoma

Embolotherapy with detachable silicone balloons: technique and clinical results.

Catheter techniques and early clinical results of therapeutic embolization with detachable silicone rubber balloons are described in 13 patients. Effective control of post-traumatic or spontaneously occurring hemorrhage or preoperative devascularization of neoplasms was achieved in 10 patients. Three additional patients, one each with pelvic arteriovenous malformation. pulmonary arteriovenous malformation, and hemangioendothelioma of the liver, were partially treated by balloon occulsion. Therapeutic embolization with detachable silicone balloons provides a method of long-term, extremely selective arterial occlusion with reduced risks from inadvertent embolization of neighboring circulations.

Abdomen

A comparison of unipolar and bipolar electrograms for cardiac pacemaker sensing.

Simultaneous unipolar and bipolar electrograms were recorded and compared from 49 pacemaker patients with bipolar endocardial electrodes. Average bipolar depolarization signal voltage equalled that of unipolar but showed greater variation. Bipolar and unipolar slew rates were equal in both mean and variance. The proximal pole voltage had little effect on the bipolar result in 8% of the cases, tended to cancel the tip voltage in 49% of the cases and augmented the tip voltage in 43% of the electrograms. The average bipolar R wave duration was 28% less, the T wave amplitude 34% less, and the ST-segment elevation 37% less than the unipolar values. By consistently attenuating the undersirable T waves and ST elevations, while leaving the depolarization signal unaffected, the bipolar electrode offered the advantage of a superior signal-to-noise ratio for sensing depolarization. In one case, however, the bipolar signal was so small as to cause a clinical sensing failure.

Arrhythmias, Cardiac

The ventricular endocardial electrogram and pacemaker sensing.

During cardiac pacemaker implantation and pulse generator replacement, unipolar, right ventricular electrograms were recorded from 133 patients (77 at implantation and 56 at pulse generator replacement) at 200 mm. per second with a band pass of 0.1 to 2,000 Hz on photographic paper. Each signal was analyzed for electrogram structure, peak-to-peak voltage deflection, ST-segment displacement, and maximum voltage deflection/time (slew rate [dv/dt]). The QRS designation of the peripheral electrocardiogram was used for the endocardial electrogram wave forms, which are sufficiently similar to allow QRS terminology to be used. Of the acute electrograms (at implantation) 58 per cent had a small Q followed by an R wave which was 10 per cent or more of the S amplitude; 30 per cent had an R wave less than 10 per cent of the S; all had a straight line segment, within the QRS complex, exhibiting maximum amplitude and slew rate and a large ST-segment elevation. In 12 per cent the Q was followed by an R wave only. The mean voltage was 12.4 mv. +/- 5.5, the slew rate mean 2.9 v. per second +/- 1.5, and the ST displacement 4.0 mv. +/- 2.6. All chronic (over 6 months after implantation) electrograms but one had no ST-segment elevation, and all had an inverted T wave and a straight line segment extending from the highest to the lowest peaks of the QRS complex. The chronic voltage amplitude is 15 per cent lower and the slew rate 41 per cent lower than that of the acute electrogram. The margin of amplitude and slew rate required at implantation to maintain adequate postimplant sensing must accommodate these changes. The possibility of satisfactory pacing threshold associated with poor sensing exists. Knowledge of the amplitude and slew rate allows the determination of the optimal position for electrode placement and the sensitivity required for satisfactory pulse generator selection, design, and operation.

Electrocardiography