Korkut Bostanci

A complication of pectus excavatum operation: endomyocardial steel strut.

An 18-year-old patient who had correction of pectus excavatum deformity in our department 4 years earlier was admitted because of stabbing chest pain. He had not attended to postoperative controls and had not come for extraction of the steel strut, although he had been contacted. He was diagnosed to have a broken steel strut, and the strut was noted to be embedded in the myocardium. This unreported complication of pectus excavatum operation forced us to review sternal support techniques.

Uncommon complication of arterial switch operation: tracheobronchial compression

We describe 2 patients in whom symptoms of airway compression developed after arterial switch operation for correction of the transposition of the great arteries. The clinical features, diagnosis, management, and proposed mechanisms of this complication are described.

Perioperative Anesthetic and Surgical Complications of the Nuss Procedure

OBJECTIVE The Nuss procedure is a chest wall remodeling surgery performed in patients with pectus excavatum. This study was performed to analyze perioperative surgical and anesthetic complications with the Nuss procedures. DESIGN A retrospective analysis. SETTING An academic hospital. PARTICIPANTS Two hundred fourteen patients (children, adolescents, and adults) undergoing the Nuss procedure over 6 years. INTERVENTIONS Patient age and sex, premorbid diseases, indications for surgery, patient position during the procedure, the length of surgery, time to hospital discharge, postoperative analgesia method, and the presence of perioperative complications were recorded. MEASUREMENTS No mortality was observed. The overall complication rate was 18.7%, but the overall event rate was 42.6% (91 events in 40 patients). Intraoperative hypotension, tachycardia, and hypercapnia were the most common complications (4.7%), followed by postoperative ileus (3.2%), pneumothorax (right, left, or bilateral; 4.2%), lung parenchymal laceration (2.3%), and postoperative nausea and vomiting (2.3%). Two patients had an ulnar nerve palsy and 1 patient had a brachial nerve palsy as a result of surgical position. CONCLUSION Although the Nuss procedure is reported to be minimally invasive, some serious complications concerning both surgery and anesthesia should not be overlooked.

Effects of Ventilation on Lung Function after Normothermic Ischemia

The effects of atelectasis and hyperinflation were compared on immediate postischemic lung function and architecture, following normothermic ischemia. Thirty Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into 3 groups; 2 groups were subjected to 60 minutes of normothermic ischemia. The lungs were atelectatic in 10 (group A), they were hyperinflated to a pressure of 10 cm H2O in 10 (group B), and 10 rats served as nonischemic controls (group C). After 5 minutes of reperfusion, left pneumonectomies were performed and the lungs were examined histopathologically. There were no statistically significant differences in pulmonary venous blood oxygen tension or pH in the 3 groups. There was a significant difference between the compliance data of groups A and B (p < 0.05) and a highly significant difference between the compliance data of groups A and C (p < 0.001). Alveolar edema, perivascular edema, peribronchiolar edema, vascular congestion, and intrapulmonary hemorrhage were more frequent and more severe in the atelectatic group than in the hyperinflated group. The results indicate that postischemic injury occurred at an early stage in atelectatic lungs before any change in blood gas values and that superior postischemic preservation was achieved in lungs maintained in a hyperinflated state.