Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery Blogs This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

Fontan Circulation
Fontan repair of tricuspid atresia was initiated in late 1960s. Francis Fontan et al reported that surgical repair was carried out in three patients with tricuspid atresia of which two were successful [1]. Inferior venacaval blood was directed to the left lung and the right pulmonary artery received the superior venacaval blood through a cavopulmonary anastomosis. They mentioned that the size of the pulmonary arteries must be large enough and at sufficiently low pressure to allow flow in a cavopulmonary anastomosis. The first step was a Glenn procedure in which distal end of right pulmonary artery was anastomosed to the ...
Source: Cardiophile MD - April 20, 2021 Category: Cardiology Authors: Prof. Dr. Johnson Francis Tags: Cardiac Surgery Source Type: blogs

Tendon-Inspired Sutures Protect Fragile Tissues
Researchers at McGill University in Canada have developed bioinspired sutures that mimic the structure of human tendons. The gel-covered sutures are slippery and tough, reducing the damage caused by conventional sutures when used on soft tissues. Interestingly, the gel surface of the sutures may allow for advanced applications such as drug delivery, infection prevention, or even near-infrared imaging to aid suture placement and removal during minimally invasive surgery. Suturing to close wounds and aid healing is an old technique, with centuries of history, but in all that time sutures haven’t advanced all that much. ...
Source: Medgadget - April 12, 2021 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Cardiac Surgery GI Materials Ob/Gyn Plastic Surgery Radiology Thoracic Surgery Vascular Surgery Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 12th 2021
In conclusion, the MR exhibited the protective effects against age-related behavioral disorders, which could be partly explained by activating circulating FGF21 and promoting mitochondrial biogenesis, and consequently suppressing the neuroinflammation and oxidative damages. These results demonstrate that FGF21 can be used as a potential nutritional factor in dietary restriction-based strategies for improving cognition associated with neurodegeneration disorders. Senescent T Cells Cause Changes in Fat Tissue that are Harmful to Long-Term Health https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2021/04/senescent-t-cells-cause...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 11, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

The Latest Data from the Interventions Testing Program: Nicotinamide Riboside has No Effect on Mouse Life Span
The Interventions Testing Program (ITP) at the National Institute on Aging runs very rigorous, costly life span studies in large numbers of mice, picking a few interventions to test each year. The usual outcome is that a treatment with some interesting past results is found to have absolutely no effect on life span when run through the rigor of the ITP process. We should all bear this in mind whenever modest life span extension in mice is reported by researchers elsewhere in the community. Based on past ITP data, a great many such results are the result of chance or poor experimental design. Will the ITP ever get ar...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 9, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Can fitness counter fatness?
In a recent study, researchers attempted to answer the very question posed in the title of this post. Before delving into the findings of this study and how it fits with what we already know about this topic, let’s define some key terms. What do we mean by fitness and fatness? Fitness, also referred to as cardiovascular fitness or cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), is a measure of the performance of the heart, lungs, and muscles of the body. Muscle performance includes measures of both strength and endurance. Because of the connections between the mind and body, fitness also has an effect on mental alertness and emotional ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - April 1, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Chika Anekwe, MD, MPH Tags: Diet and Weight Loss Exercise and Fitness Source Type: blogs

Polymer Technologies for Tissue Repair: Interview with Christophe Bancel, TISSIUM CEO
TISSIUM, a Paris-based medtech firm, has been named a French Tech 120 company for the 2021 program. TISSIUM, previously called Gecko Biomedical, is developing a suite of polymer technologies and associated delivery devices for tissue repair applications. French Tech 120 is a French government driven program designed to support a total of 120 late-stage startups based in France every year. The program provides financial and practical support for promising companies, and offers an opportunity for companies to network with other start-ups at a similar stage of development. TISSIUM aims to create polymer solutions for tissu...
Source: Medgadget - March 18, 2021 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Exclusive Materials Surgery FrenchTech120 TISSIUM Source Type: blogs

Medical Robotics and The Future of Surgery: Interview with Tracy Accardi, VP of R & D for Medtronic Surgical Robotics
Medtronic has been a key player in the minimally invasive surgery space for the last few decades, and has made great strides more recently in robotic surgery with last year’s acquisition of Digital Surgery. As a quick reference point: despite the many benefits of robotic-assisted surgery (RAS), only 3% of surgeries around the world are done with the help of robots. Medtronic is aiming to shatter the barriers currently thwarting the adoption of this important technology. We were able to connect with Tracy Accardi, VP of R&D at Medtronic to catch a sneak peek of what the industry can expect over the next six months&...
Source: Medgadget - March 16, 2021 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Alice Ferng Tags: Cardiac Surgery Exclusive Neurosurgery Orthopedic Surgery Plastic Surgery Thoracic Surgery Urology Vascular Surgery Source Type: blogs

Improving Structural Heart Disease Care: Interview with Joel Portice, egnite CEO
egnite, a digital healthcare company based in California, offers the CardioCare, an AI-based solution that aims to help clinicians identify and treat patients with structural heart disease. CardioCare is already used in over 50 hospitals in the US. The company reports that structural heart disease can sometimes be undertreated or not identified in a timely manner. These gaps in care inspired CardioCare, which aims to help clinicians in their diagnosis and referral of such patients. For instance, the system can analyze echocardiograms to look for signs of structural heart disease, and provide targeted information on each...
Source: Medgadget - March 8, 2021 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Cardiology Exclusive Source Type: blogs

Elevated prosthetic valve gradients
Elevated gradients across prosthetic valves can occur due to various reasons. But before declaring that prosthetic valve gradients are elevated, the usual gradient across the given type of prosthetic valve should be known. Different types of normally functioning prosthetic heart valves have different gradients. Normal gradient is different between the various valve positions. Transmitral prosthetic valve gradient is lower than transaortic prosthetic valve gradient. If the gradient during post operative review is available, it can be used as a benchmark for comparison. Some of the important causes for elevated prosthetic ...
Source: Cardiophile MD - February 27, 2021 Category: Cardiology Authors: Prof. Dr. Johnson Francis Tags: Cardiac Surgery Echocardiography Source Type: blogs

The Paradigm Shift That Wasn ’ t: The ISCHEMIA Trial
By ANISH KOKA A recent email that arrived in my in-box a few weeks ago from an academic hailed the latest “paradigm shift” in cardiology as it relates to the management of stable angina. (Stable angina refers to chronic,non-accelerating chest pain with a moderate level of exertion). The points made in the email were as follows (the order of the points made are preserved): The financial burden of stress testing was significant ( 11 billion dollars per annum in the USA!)For stable CAD, medical treatment is critical. We now have better medical treatments than all prior trials including ischemia. th...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 26, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Medical Practice Physicians Anish Koka cardiology ISCHEMIA trial Source Type: blogs

Intraoral Stimulation for Obstructive Sleep Apnea: Interview with Akhil Tripathi, CEO of Signifier Medical
Signifier Medical Technologies, a company with headquarters in London, UK and Massachusetts, has created a new treatment for obstructive sleep apnea, and it is the first to be used during waking hours. Unlike conventional sleep apnea devices, the eXciteOSA is designed to be used for short periods during the day and employs electrical stimulation to improve tongue muscle function, helping keep the airway open during sleep. It was recently authorized for sale by the FDA. Sleep apnea involves airway obstruction during sleep and can have a variety of serious consequences, including cancer and cardiovascular disease....
Source: Medgadget - February 24, 2021 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Cardiology Exclusive Medicine Neurology Source Type: blogs

Digital Health In Plastic Surgery And Cosmetics
On February 9, 2037 at 6:48 a.m. your smart sleep alarm nudges you to wake up. Picking up your phone and activating the front camera, you take your daily selfie. This one is not for social media but rather it’s to have a smart algorithm analyse the picture. It will subsequently determine whether your personalised ointment is effective against those pesky acnes. After getting a report in seconds, you make your way to the bathroom to freshen up before making breakfast. As you sip your coffee, you get a reminder from your telehealth app that your dental surgery is coming up later this week. It also sends a notifica...
Source: The Medical Futurist - February 9, 2021 Category: Information Technology Authors: Pranavsingh Dhunnoo Tags: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Augmented Reality Digital Health Research Security & Privacy AI Surgery aesthetics facial recognition Mayo Clinic facelift plastic surgery ML Face2Gene Nuralogix SmartTek Kapanu Invisalig Source Type: blogs

How to follow up Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy ? : Too much reliance on LVOT gradient is problematic
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common primary disorder of cardiac muscle. The incidence is about 1 in 500, which would mean 1.5 crore HCM patients will be living on our planet at any moment. The root cause of pathology is located in 20 odd genes that define cardiac muscle protein integrity. (Myosin, Troponin, Titin, etc) This leads to the bizarre architecture of cardiac muscle, prone to progressive fibrosis.(Paradoxically, 90% of HCM have normal or supernormal contractility till very late stages, proving that the much-dreaded term myocardial disarray has little effect on contractility. It is all the more f...
Source: Dr.S.Venkatesan MD - February 5, 2021 Category: Cardiology Authors: dr s venkatesan Tags: hypertrophic cardiomyopathy criley concept hocm hcm lobster claw hcm lobster claw is pulsus bisferiens mavacamten explorer trial what is the mechanism of hocm gradient lvot Source Type: blogs

Why didn ’ t you try ECMO for my dad , doctor ? I feel really guilty !
It is just past midnight: This is a gloomy conversation between a patient’s son and a cardiologist in the silent waiting room, just outside the dim-lit ICU of a popular 4-star hospital in Chennai. “I am sorry to say, Mr. B., your father didn’t make it. Has succumbed to the heart attack. We have been trying to resuscitate him for the past one hour. We have done everything. We have managed to open up IRA, and 2 more critical blocks still it couldn’t help. It was a massive one. Sorry again. “Doctor, I feel very bad. What went wrong, I want to know. Doc, did you try ECMO ?,” the ...
Source: Dr.S.Venkatesan MD - February 1, 2021 Category: Cardiology Authors: dr s venkatesan Tags: Cardiology -Technology ecmo IABP impella tandem heart ecmo Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 1st 2021
In this study, we characterize age-related phenotypes of human hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). We report increased frequencies of HSC, hematopoetic progenitor cells (HPC), and lineage negative cells in the elderly but a decreased frequency of multi-lymphoid progenitors. Aged human HSCs further exhibited a delay in initiating division ex vivo though without changes in their division kinetics. The activity of the small RhoGTPase Cdc42 was elevated in aged human hematopoietic cells and we identified a positive correlation between Cdc42 activity and the frequency of HSCs upon aging. The frequency of human HSCs polar fo...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 31, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs