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Aortic valve replacement following an earlier coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) procedure is fairly common. When this situation occurs, the type of valve dysfunction is usually stenosis (with or without regurgitation), and whether it was missed at the time of the earlier CABG or developed subsequently is usually unclear. We attempted to determine the survival in patients who had had aortic valve replacement after 2 previous CABG procedures. We describe 12 patients who had aortic valve replacement for aortic stenosis; rather than one previous CABG operation, all had had 2 previous CABG procedures. Only one patient died in the early postoperative period after aortic valve replacement, and the remaining 11 were improved substantially: all have lived at least 11 months, and one is still alive at over 101 months after aortic valve replacement. Aortic valve replacement remains beneficial for most patients even after 2 previous CABG procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 52-year-old woman is described in whom cardiac sarcoidosis was diagnosed clinically on the basis of high-grade heart block, recurring ventricular tachyarrhythmias, and acute cardiac decompensation. Confirmation of sarcoidosis was not determined until necropsy. When it causes cardiac dysfunction, sarcoidosis rarely causes dysfunction of another body organ, although small sarcoid granulomas may also be present in noncardiac organs or tissues. In the present patient, neurosarcoidosis accompanied the cardiac sarcoidosis, but it was the latter that produced the life-threatening symptoms and was fatal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Findings in a 19-year-old man with anterior wall acute myocardial infarction and total occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery associated with protein C deficiency are described. In addition, 5 previously reported patients with similar findings are summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of 486 patients who underwent carotid endarterectomy from January 1996 to June 2002 showed similar mean ages in the 269 men and 217 women, whereas the reported mean ages at the time of abdominal aortic aneurysmal resection and at the time of coronary artery bypass grafting were usually significantly different between the 2 genders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a 28 year old man who complained of dyspnea everytime he smokes and chew tobacco or when he exerts an effort more than his normal activity. According to the patient the discomfort was gradually relieved when he used an albuterol inhaler ≥ ten times a day. It stated that transthoracic echocardiogram revealed left ventricular thickening with normal systolic and diastolic function. Furthermore, valve morphology was not clearly seen, but a unicuspid valve was suspected.

We sought to measure the accuracy of 2-dimensional transthoracic echocardiography in determining aortic valve structure in patients with aortic stenosis (AS) undergoing aortic valve replacement (AVR). Few studies have compared aortic valve structure determined by echocardiogram to that determined by examination of the operatively excised stenotic aortic valve. Two-dimensional echocardiograms were reviewed and interpreted by an expert echocardiographer in blinded fashion in 100 patients >50 years of age (mean 70) who had undergone AVR for isolated AS ± aortic regurgitation and the aortic valve structure (unicuspid, bicuspid, tricuspid) was compared to that from examination of the operatively excised stenotic valve. After excluding 14 cases in which echocardiograms were uninterpretable because of heavy calcium and/or poor image quality, congenitally malformed valves were present in 44 patients (51%) and tricuspid valves in 42 of the 86 patients (49%). Ten of the 14 patients (71%) with uninterpretable echocardiograms had congenitally malformed valves. Valve structure by echocardiogram was concordant with morphologic interpretation in 57 of 86 patients (66% accuracy, kappa = 0.33). Accuracy trended toward improvement as degree of AS decreased. In patients with valve areas similar to those enrolled in the recent transcatheter aortic valve implantation trial (PARTNER; 0.7 ± 0.2 cm(2)), aortic valve structure was accurately determined by echocardiography in 21 of 35 patients (60%). In conclusion, aortic valve structure was interpretable by transthoracic echocardiogram in 86 of 100 patients and accurate in 57 of these 86 patients (66%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of outcomes in 31 patients who had combined mitral valve replacement (MVR) and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) for ischemic mitral regurgitation (MR) disclosed that 12 patients had MR because of papillary muscle rupture and that 19 patients had MR because of papillary muscle necrosis or fibrosis without rupture. Of the 12 patients with rupture, 6 died within 2 months of operation and the other 6 lived >or=6 years postoperatively; of the 19 patients without rupture, none died within 2 months of operation and 11 (58%) lived at least 6 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myocarditis and acute myocardial infarction (AMI) have been reported after COVID-19 messenger ribonucleic acid vaccination. Nearly all reported patients with myocarditis or AMI after COVID-19 vaccination have survived and become asymptomatic. Described herein is a previously healthy man who developed severe heart decompensation shortly after receiving a COVID-19 vaccination and died approximately 40 hours later. An autopsy disclosed massive AMI., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors have no competing interest to declare., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

This consensus of nomenclature and classification for congenital bicuspid aortic valve and its aortopathy is evidence-based and intended for universal use by physicians (both pediatricians and adults), echocardiographers, advanced cardiovascular imaging specialists, interventional cardiologists, cardiovascular surgeons, pathologists, geneticists, and researchers spanning these areas of clinical and basic research. In addition, as long as new key and reference research is available, this international consensus may be subject to change based on evidence-based data1.

Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has brought in recent years relief of cardiac-induced symptoms to a large number of patients with aortic stenosis. Whether it is better to use TAVI for the treatment of aortic valve stenosis superimposed on a congenitally bicuspid valve has been debated in contrast to its proved usefulness in aortic valve stenosis involving a tricuspid aortic valve. From January 2020 to March 2023, surgical aortic valve replacement of TAVI valve and native aortic valve was done in 6 patients. The clinical findings of the patients and morphologic findings from the surgical specimens submitted to the cardiac pathology department were subsequently examined. All the 6 native aortic valves had bicuspid configuration. The TAVI valve in each patient was excised from 9 to 88 months (mean 36 months) after it had been implanted because of paravalvular leak in 4, severe stenosis of the prosthetic valve in 1, and bioprosthetic cuspal degeneration in 1. Prosthetic valve endocarditis was clinically suspected in 2 patients, but the specimen culture was negative. Before surgical aortic valve replacement, 3 patients experienced stroke after TAVI. All 6 patients had low hemoglobin levels (mean 9.5 mg/100 ml) and low hematocrit levels (mean 29.5%). Reticulocyte count was available in 4 patients and was increased in all (mean 3.5%). When the stenotic native aortic valve configuration is bicuspid, the raphe tends to be calcified first and located perpendicular to the flow of the blood and may prevent the ring of the caged bioprosthesis from being transferred to the aortic wall, which is a requirement for full opening of the lumen of the bioprosthesis. Thus, thorough consideration needs to be made before performing TAVI in patients whose native aortic valve is stenotic and bicuspid., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors have no competing interest to declare., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Described herein are 4 patients who underwent orthotopic heart transplant (OHT) because of heart failure caused by acute myocardial infarcts which healed. These healed infarcts were the result of preferential severe narrowing of the left anterior descending coronary artery. In all 4 cases, the myocardial infarct caused severe scarring of the ventricular septum (VS), more than that observed in the left ventricular free wall where most myocardial infarcts secondary to coronary artery narrowing typically occur., Competing Interests: Disclosures The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Described herein is a newborn boy with likely right-sided hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HC), who survived for 18 hours after birth. At necropsy, he had a severely thickened right ventricular free wall, ventricular septum, right atrial wall and a hypoplastic left-sided heart. There was a large fossa ovale type atrial septal defect and also a patent ductus arteriosus. During peak systole, the right ventricular outflow tract was obstructed, and its contents were pushed into the thick-walled right atrium, then rapidly into the thin-walled left atrium via a large fossa ovale atrial septal defect. The contents were then pushed into the thin-walled left ventricle and finally into the small ascending aorta and into the lungs via a large patent ductus arteriosus. We were unable to find a similar published case., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Described herein are 2 patients diagnosed clinically as "giant cell myocarditis." Both had short clinical courses (∼ 2 months) before lifesaving orthotopic heart transplantation (OHT). Examination of the hearts disclosed multiple widespread yellow lesions in the ventricular walls. The short clinical courses in these 2 patients are quite different from cardiac sarcoidosis, which typically has courses lasting years. In contrast to cardiac sarcoidosis, the ventricular myocardial lesions were yellow in color not white as in cardiac sarcoidosis. In conclusion, we consider giant-cell myocarditis and cardiac sarcoidosis to be different conditions and not simply different stages of the same condition., Competing Interests: Disclosures The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Mitral annular calcium (MAC) may produce mitral stenosis (MS) if its quantity is massive. We define massive MAC as the presence of a huge quantity of calcium underlying the posterior mitral leaflet and extending across all or nearly all of the ventricular aspect of the anterior mitral leaflet. This report was prompted to emphasize the hazards of performing mitral valve replacement in patients with MS secondary to massive MAC. The clinical data and morphology of the operatively excised mitral valves from the 11 patients who had mitral valve replacement for MS secondary to massive MAC are described. Of the 11 patients, 6 died postoperatively, 5 of whom had 4+/4+ MAC. The high mortality in these patients suggests that the decision to perform mitral valve replacement needs to be carefully considered if the quantity of MAC is massive., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Inc.)