Objective To investigate the value of real-time three-dimensional transesophageal echocardiography(RT-3DTEE) in mitral valve repair. Methods RT-3DTEE was performed in six patients[5 male,1 female,mean age (45.7±12.6)years] with mitral valve prolapse by using Philips IE33 with X7-2t probe.Preoperative RT-3DTEE studies were compared with surgical findings in patients undergoing surgical repair. Results RT-3DTEE could display dynamic morphology of mitral valve,the location of prolapse,and spatial relation tO the surrounding tissues.It could provide surgical views of the valves and the valvular apparatus.RT-3DTEE results were consistant with surgical findings.Conclusions RT-3DTEE is a unique new modality for rapid and accurate evaluation of mitral prolapse and mittal repair.

Objective To develop a rapid quantitative detecting assay for point-of-care testing ( POCT ) of N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide ( NT-proBNP ) in serum by the fluorescence immunochromatographic technology.Methods Applying double-antibody sandwich assay to establish the quantitative NT-proBNP kit.The performance of quantitative NT-proBNP kit was evaluated by the sensitivity , specificity, accuracy, precision, stability and clinical effectiveness.It compared the research kit and conference kit by the parallel experience in the 1 056(605 males, 451 females)serum specimen collected from Guangdong Provincial People′s Hospital, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital and Children′s Hospital of Zhengzhou between February 2013 to April 2014.Statistical significance of the results was assessed by correlation analysis , linear regression , receive operating characteristic ( ROC) curve analysis , negative and positive consistent.Results The report range of the NT-proBNP kit was 18-35 000 ng/L.The coefficient of variation ( CV) values for low , median and high concentration calibrators respectively were all less than 15%.Common interfering substances in human serum specimens such as bilirubin , triglyceride and cholesterol were found no significant affect on NT-proBNP antigen detection and the CV were no more than 15%.According to the results of detection for calibrators , the shelf time of the NT-proBNP diagnostic kit should be longer than 12 months.The NT-proBNP kit and reference kit had good correlation ( Y=1.048 9X developed reference +121.54, R2 =0.956 6, n=1 056) to detect the target protein through the parallel experiments and the deviation of the quantitative results of clinical serum samples showed no statistical significance (Z=0.88, P=0.379>0.05).The clinical assays of two different diagnostic kits showed good consistency based on the ROC curve evaluation which is compared by two cut-off values (300 and 450 ng/L).The areas under ROC curve were 0.981 and 0.978 respectively.Conclusions A novel NT-proBNP chromatographic quantitative immunofluorescence detection method was developed in this study .The performance evaluation data indicated that the kit is suitable for rapid detection of serum NT -proBNP.

Background and objective Pre-operative assessment of mitral valve(MV)anatomy is essential to surgical design in patientsundergoing MV repair.Although 2-dimensional(2D)echocardiography provides precise information regarding MV anatomy,RT-3DTEE could increase the understanding of MV apparatus and individual scallop identification.We aimed to investigate the value of RT-3DTEE in MV repair. Methods RT-3DTEE was performed in six patients with mitral valve prolapse(MVP) by using Philips IE33with X7-2t probe.Preoperative RT-3DTEE studies were compared with surgical findings in patients undergoing surgical mitral valverepair,and quantitative evaluation was performed by QLab 6.0 software before and after surgicalmitralvalve repair.Results RT-3DTEE could display dynamic morphology of MV,the location of prolapse,and spatial relation to the surrounding tissue.It couldprovide surgical views of the valves and the valvular apparatus.These resuIts were consistent with surgical findings.The quantitativeevahuation before and after surgical MV repair indicated that anterolateral to posteromedial diameter of annalus.anterior to posteriordiameter of annulus,perimeter of annullus.,and area of annalus in projectionplane were significantlv smaller after operation comparedwith those before operation(P＜0.05).The length of posterior leaflet,,the area of anterior and posterior leaflet,the maximal prolapseheight,the volume of leaflet prolapse and the length of coaptation in projection planewere significantly reduced after operation(P＜0.05).Conclusion RT-3DTEE is a unique new medality for rapid and accurate evaluation of mitral valve prolapse and miwal valverepair.