Tag Archives: cardiac surgical procedures

Introduction Figure 1. Transthoracic echocardiogram appearance of quadricuspid aortic valve (QAV) Quadricuspid aortic valve (QAV) is a rare congenital anomaly1 that can present as aortic insufficiency requiring treatment in later life. We present a case of aortic regurgitation (AR) associated with a QAV, managed by aortic valve replacement and review the literature surrounding this unusual presentation. Case presentation Figure 2. Cardiac magnetic resonance appearance of QAV A 65-year-old Caucasian woman was referred with progressive effort-related breathlessness for treatment of longstanding AR. She presented with mild bipedal oedema, a regu

Patient selection The issues involved in making the decision to undergo surgery are complex as the elderly and very elderly cohort of patients present with more diffuse cardiovascular disease, age-related comorbidities, weaker tissues and frailty, with a lower tolerance to intervention. The challenge is accurately predicting and sharing with those elderly patients the chances of improving or worsening their quality of life. With novel methods of assessing frailty, such as sarcopenia measurement,1 a more refined approach to patient selection is evolving. Ishikawa et al. have found that the operative mortality of octogenarians presenting for e

No content available