A 75-year-old woman was admitted with complaints of progressive portprandial abdominal pain and weight loss. A bruit was audible in the epigastrium. Angiogram showed narrowing of the lower abdominal aorta with complete occlusion of the celiac, the superior and inferior mesenteric arteries. A 6mm Gore-Tex graft was first anastomosed from the supraceliac abdominal aorta to the superior mesenteric artery. A saphenous vein graft was then inserted proximally to the Gore-Tex graft and distally to the celiac artery. The postoperative course was uneventful. During two years of observation symptoms have disappeared and patient returned to a normal weight.

A 54-year-old woman complained of prolonged fever. Echocardiography showed severe mitral regurgitation with vegetation, and computed tomography showed right coronary artery (RCA) fistula to the coronary sinus (CS). Blood culture revealed Strep. viridans, thus a diagnosis of active infective endocarditis was established. The patient underwent urgent surgery. Surgical findings showed that vegetation was located in A3 to P3 of the mitral valve. The patient underwent mitral valve repair using a glutalualdehyde-treated autologous pericardial patch and artificial chordea. Epicardial ligation for fistula was performed. Her postoperative course was uneventful.

Background and Purpose : Many cases of amnesia caused by thalamic hemorrhage involve anterior nucleus hemorrhage, dorsomedial nucleus hemorrhage, and intraventricular rupture. In the present study, intraventricular rupture was studied with a focus on cases with hematoma compression at the fornix. Methods : Of 116 patients with thalamic hemorrhage admitted to our hospital, 50 patients aged <70 years who had hemorrhage during their first stroke confined to the thalamus, internal capsule, and corona radiata, and who neither developed hydrocephalus nor showed dementia prior to onset were investigated. Thalamic hemorrhages were classified by CT findings and the extent of intraventricular rupture. Memory was studied by the FIM memory scores on admission and discharge. Results and Conclusion : Patients with dorsomedial nucleus hemorrhage showed no tendency toward amnesia and were equivalent to patients with posterolateral nucleus hemorrhage, which does not usually result in amnesia on its own. Of the 30 patients with posterolateral nucleus hemorrhage, a high degree of amnesia was observed in the 18 with intraventricular rupture. A high proportion of patients with dorsomedial nucleus hemorrhage experienced intraventricular rupture (5 of 6 patients). Equivalent degrees of amnesia were observed in patients with intraventricular rupture with dorsomedial nucleus hemorrhage and those with posterolateral nucleus hemorrhage. The present findings in conjunction with the fact that amnesia in thalamic hemorrhage involves episodic memory impairment suggest that amnesia in patients with dorsomedial or posterolateral nucleus hemorrhage or with intraventricular rupture does not stem from damage to the dorsomedial nucleus, which is part of the Yakovlev circuit involved in emotional memory. Instead, the primary cause appears to be the effects of intraventricular rupture on the Papez circuit surrounding the lateral ventricle and foramen of Monro.

Up until the present, the primary treatment for threatened premature labor has been bed rest, with drug therapy as a supplement. However, with drug therapy the problems of side effects and dosage limitations have made it difficult to achieve therapeutic effectiveness. In this paper, the authors report the favorable results obtained in such cases when moxibustion and a microwave emitter were used for stimulation therapy based on Oriental medical theory. Moxibustion was carried out on Shim, Yusen and Saninko (acupuncture points) in cases of threatened premature labor beyond the 24th week. Despite the short duration of treatment, uterine tension was relieved, fetal movement increased, and resistance in the umbilical artery and uterine artery reduced. Similar results were achieved with multiple microwave stimulation treatments; the effects lasted for long periods and were not accompanied by side effects. Thus, the results showed that through the use of moxibustion therapy in conjunction with drug therapy, the dosage could be reduced, and the frequency of side-effect appearance lowered. These results suggest that moxibustion therapy has potential as an effective and safe new treatment for threatened premature labor.

A 60-year-old man was admitted to our hospital due to cerebellum infarction. He had undergone replacement of the aortic valve and ascending aorta because of aortitis syndrome 2 years ago. Electrocardiogram showed complete atrioventricular block. Echocardiography showed aortic annular abscess and vegetation on the prosthetic aortic valve. A pulmonary autograft was transplanted of the aortic root (Ross operation) after complete resection of the infected sites. The postoperative course was uneventful. The ross operation was considered to be a treatment of choice for prosthetic aortic valve endocarditis.

We reviewed our experience with 4 cases of chronic dissecting aortic aneurysm (DeBakey IIIb) with the false lumen extending into the abdominal aorta and major branches being perfused from the false lumen. In such cases, resection of the intrathoracic portion of the aneurysm and closing of the distral false lumen may exclude visceral perfusion from the false lumen. In order to ensure continued perfusion of true and false lumens after repair, we performed “double barrel” anastomosis for distal anastomosis in graft replacement of the descending aorta. Follow-up periods ranged from 8 to 21 months, 17 months on average. Postoperatively, neither apparent expansion of the false lumen nor compression of the true lumen was found in these cases. The advantage of this procedure is the effective restoration of visceral perfusion. We emphasize that this procedure is one of the choices of procedures, as a two-staged approach for chronic aortic dissection presenting with visceral perfusion from the false lumen and without an enlarged abdominal aorta, though more patients and longer follow-up are required to fully evaluate this procedure.

We collected and analyzed large-scale data concerning the fall of stroke inpatients in convalescent rehabilitation wards. Three hundred seventy-four of 1,107 inpatients experienced one fall or more, and 16 factors associated with falls were clarified by the chi-square test. To extract the significant item from a multifactor, the logistic regression analysis of 16 factors was carried out, and we developed an assessment sheet for the risk degree of first fall prediction in stroke inpatients. We selected eight variables as the items on the assessment sheet : history of previous falls, central paralysis, visual impairment, sensory disturbance, urinary incontinence, use of psychotropic medicines, mode of locomotion, and cognitive impairment. The total score of the assessment sheet was ranged from 0 to 10 and the mean score of fallers (6.4±1.5) among subjects was significantly higher than that of non-fallers (5.1±1.9) (p <0.001). When the subjects were classified into three groups, a significant difference (p<0.001) in the tendency of fall incidence in term of days after admission was found among the three groups on the basis of the Kaplan-Meier survival curve.