Mengwei Tan

Background: The treatment strategy of early nutritional support after cardiac surgery has gradually been adopted. However, there are no scientific guidelines for the timing and specific programs of early nutritional support. Methods: A retrospective, single-center analysis (2021–2023) was carried out including elderly patients who were admitted for valvular heart disease and received open-heart valve replacement surgery. We designated patients who started the optimized nutritional support after surgery as the optimized enteral nutritional support strategy TN (EN) group and those who received traditional nutritional support as the traditional nutritional support strategy (TN) group. The nutritional and immune indexes, postoperative complications, length of hospital stay, and hospitalization cost of the two groups were compared and analyzed. Results: We identified 378 eligible patients, comprising 193 (51%) patients in the EN group and 185 (49%) patients in the TN group. There was no significant difference in hospital mortality between the two groups, but the proportion of nosocomial pneumonia was significantly lower in the EN group than in the TN group (P < 0.001). In the Poisson regression analysis, EN was not associated with an increase in gastrointestinal complications (P = 0.549). The EN group also seemed to have shorter hospital stays and lower hospitalization expenses (P < 0.001). In the comparison of postoperative gastrointestinal complications, fewer patients experienced diarrhea (P = 0.021) and abdominal distension (P = 0.033) in the EN group compared with the TN group. Conclusion: The optimal nutritional support strategy could effectively improve the clinical outcome of high-risk patients with valvular heart disease.

IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD) is a newly recognized but rare entity involving multiple organs, with autoimmune pancreatitis, retroperitoneal mass, and the inflammation of glands being typical in most cases. IgG4-related perivascular lesions, although uncommon, have been increasingly reported in recent years. Diagnosis of IgG4-RD relies on comprehensive consideration of characteristic histopathological and immunostaining results, clinical and imaging findings, and serological results according to several widely recognized diagnostic criteria. This benign disorder frequently presenting tumefactive lesions should be distinguished from malignancy and other inflammatory mimics. Here we report a case of tumefactive mass at the bifurcation of the pulmonary trunk causing stenosis of the proximal left and right pulmonary artery (PA) and resultant pulmonary hypertension (PH). Bypass from the PA trunk to the right branch distal to stenosis was performed to resolve the obstructive hemodynamic disturbance and PH. Glucocorticoid monotherapy was performed after a diagnosis of definite IgG4-RD. Longitudinal disease activity assessment via imaging modalities, serological parameters, and IgG4-RD responder index verified no relapse during follow-up and the validity of the treatment strategy.

The optimal surgical strategy for acute type A aortic dissection (ATAAD) is still controversial because of the inconsistent or even conflicting results of proximal aortic repair (PR) versus extensive aortic repair (ER) on early and late prognostic outcomes. This meta-analysis pooled data from all available studies of PR versus ER to get a summarized conclusion. Studies were identified by searching the Medline, EMBASE and Cochrane databases. Early and late prognostic outcomes of interest were evaluated with meta-analysis. Fixed- or random-effect models were used according to the significance of heterogeneity. Robustness of pooled estimates and the source of heterogeneity were assessed via sensitivity analyses and meta-regression, respectively. Publication bias was evaluated by the funnel plot and Egger's test. Nine studies with a total of 1872 patients were included for the meta-analysis. Pooled results indicated that, when compared with the ER procedure, PR was associated with lower early mortality [risk ratio (RR) = 0.69, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.54–0.90, P = 0.005] but higher incidence of postoperative aortic events including reoperation of the distal aorta (RR = 3.14, 95% CI 1.74–5.67, P < 0.001). PR and ER demonstrated analogous prognosis on long-term mortality (HR = 1.02, 95% CI 0.51–2.06, P = 0.96) and the incidences of early postoperative renal failure (RR = 0.75, 95% CI 0.49–1.14, P = 0.17) and stroke (RR = 0.73, 95% CI 0.30–1.78, P = 0.50). All the pooled results were robust to sensitivity analysis. Heterogeneity was insignificant except for the meta-analysis of late mortality. Performing a less aggressive initial surgical procedure of PR in ATAAD patients would have lower early mortality but elevated incidence rates of late aortic reintervention, when compared with ER. Other prognostic results of the two surgical strategies including long-term mortality were similar for both.