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On July 13, 1994, at the "Cliniques universities St. Luc", a wearable left ventricular assist device was successfully implanted, for the first time in Belgium, in a 44-year-old male. He had been readmitted with end-stage congestive heart failure 7 years after a first cardiac transplantation. In the absence of a suitable donor heart, the Novacor system was installed: the prosthetic ventricle is buried in the left flank and connected to the apex of the left ventricle and to the ascending aorta by means of valved conduits. The Novacor has allowed the patient to be optimally revalidated while waiting for a "ideal" donor heart. On Oct.-16, 1994, after 95 days of assistance, re-transplantation was uneventful and the patient has resumed a full-ranged activity as from January 1995.

Surgical risk factors of abdominal aortic disease. Between January 1, 1982 and October 1986, 327 surgical repairs were performed on abdominal aortic obstructive diseases and aneurysms at the St. Luc University Hospital. 150 pre-, per- and postoperative data were collected retrospectively for each patient. Ninety-one per cent of patients were smokers, 57.5 per cent had heart disease, 43 per cent arterial hypertension, 51 per cent peripheral vascular disease and 28 percent had obstructive lung disease. Concerning cardiac morbidity, the post-operative infarction rate was 4.4 per cent in patients who had previously suffered from an infarction, and 1.9 per cent in patients with no previous infarction. Post-operative angina-ischemia rate were respectively 23 and 4.7 per cent. Two hundred and thirty two elective operations resulted in 6 deaths (2.6 per cent) while 95 emergency operations resulted in 34 deaths (35.8 per cent). The causes of the death and the post-operative complications are detailed. The decrease of the morbidity and the mortality rates inherent to this pathology depends on an early diagnosis and surgical treatment by a team, knowledgeable of this pathology, who are able to prevent and correctly treat the complications, especially those affecting the cardiovascular system.