You can download direct from this link the full pdf of this article by Scott Rankin on the latest technique for aortic valve repair that he wrote for Innovations, the official journal of ISMICS. It is a great summary of the current state of aortic repair

A study was performed on those who had Tracheostomy before and after 10 days. They found improvements in with decreased length of stay, morbidity, and mortality.

CTVSA's approach provides heart patients a low impact solution for valve replacement. This procedure was pioneered by Dr. Galloway at NYU. CTVSA specializes in minimally invasive approaches to heart surgery and Mini AVR is unique to CTVSA in the Midwest. This video presents the CTVSA/Dr. Galloway approach but was filmed by an Italian Doctor trained by Dr. Galloway. The procedure is the same.

This Meta-analysis of 3696 patient in a wide range of papers found that while in the lower quality studies there was a benefit in magnesium administration, in the higher quality studies, this benefit was lost.

The data from all 16 centres in the Netherlands was taken and the effects of misclassfying various factors in the EuroSCORE. They found that if there was systemic misclassification then poor performing centres could easily turn themselves into moderate performing centres and they propose careful monitoring of risk factors in National datasets.

This feasibility study evaluated the exclusive use of local anesthetic and fluoroscopic guidance for transfemoral TAVR.  Of 151 patients, the success rate was over 95% and conversion to general anesthesia was required in only 3.3%.

Aortic remodeling after TEVAR in chronic dissection is a continuous process. There were no significant differences between chronic dissections and aneurysms in all volumetric parameters. Treating chronic dissections early, before aneurysm formation, did not appear to have a morphologic advantage.

 Retrograde ascending aortic dissection is a lethal early complication of TEVAR, which may be more common when treating dissection, with devices utilizing proximal bare springs or barbs for fixation, with native zone 0 proximal landing zone and with ascending aortic diameter ≥4 cm. Combinations of these risk factors may be particularly high risk. Intraoperative imaging assessment of the ascending aorta should be conducted following TEVAR to avoid under-recognition.

The management of patients with acute type A dissections complicated by cerebral malperfusion remains controversial. A recent study showed that some of the occluded carotid vessels remained blocked after central aortic repair, and this phenomenon could be related to unfavorable outcomes. The authors report a patient with type A aortic dissection who underwent aortocarotid bypass at the time of central aortic repair.