Hyperplastic Cardiac Sarcoma Recurrence

Primary cardiac sarcomas are rare tumors with a median survival of 6–12 months. Data suggest that an aggressive multidisciplinary approach may improve patient outcome. We present the case of a male who underwent resection of cardiac sarcoma three times from the age of 32 to 34. This report discusses the malignant nature of cardiac sarcoma and the importance of postoperative multidisciplinary care

Spontaneous Collapse of Bilateral Bullae with Conservative Management

We report a case of bilateral apical lung bullae that collapsed following an episode of community-acquired pneumonia with bilateral air fluid levels. With standard treatment for community-acquired pneumonia, management of a patient that may have qualified for bullectomy, (as in our case) showed complete resolution of all pathology without surgical intervention. Conservative management took precedence in alleviating pathology over surgical intervention

Spontaneous Collapse of Bilateral Bullae with Conservative Management

We report a case of bilateral apical lung bullae that collapsed following an episode of community-acquired pneumonia with bilateral air fluid levels. With standard treatment for community-acquired pneumonia, management of a patient that may have qualified for bullectomy, (as in our case) showed complete resolution of all pathology without surgical intervention. Conservative management took precedence in alleviating pathology over surgical intervention

Long-term mortality in minimally invasive compared with sternotomy coronary artery bypass surgery in the geriatric population (75 years and older patients).

OBJECTIVES: Ischaemic heart disease is the leading cause of death in the elderly population. Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery via sternotomy remains the standard of care for patients with multivessel coronary artery disease (CAD). Minimally invasive cardiac surgery (MICS)-CABG via left thoracotomy has been used as an alternative to sternotomy. The aim of our study was to assess the overall survival after MICS-CABG and sternotomy-CABG in elderly patients with CAD. METHODS: This observational study included patients who underwent coronary bypass from 2005 to 2008. Patients 75 years and older (n = 159) were included in the final analysis. Each arm was further divided into the MICS-CABG group or sternotomy-CABG group. Primary outcome and overall survival were obtained from our records and the social security death index. RESULTS: Among patients 75 years and older (159 patients), MICS-CABG had a significantly lower 5-year all-cause mortality than sternotomy-CABG (19.7 vs 47.7%, P \u3c 0.001). Similarly, Kaplan-Meier curves showed significantly higher overall survival in the MICS-CABG group compared with sternotomy-CABG (log-rank P = 0.014). After adjusting for confounders, MICS-CABG demonstrated a lower mortality than sternotomy-CABG (HR 0.51, 95% confidence interval 0.26-0.97, P = 0.04). For patients less than 75 years old, MICS and sternotomy groups had similar survival according to both uni- and multivariate analyses. CONCLUSIONS: The adjusted models demonstrated that MICS-CABG has a significantly better long-term survival than sternotomy-CABG despite slightly differing baseline characteristics. Further studies are needed to compare the short- and long-term outcomes of the two approaches among the elderly population