The patient was a 44-year-old male, who had undergone hemodialysis for these 13 years. He underwent combined aortic and mitral valve replacement for aortic and mitral regurgitation due to infectious endocarditis. Operative findings included torn chorda of the mitral valve associated with perivalvular abscess and perforation of a non-coronary aortic cusp. Double valve replacement was performed with mechanical prosthetic valves. We used continuous hemodiafiltration (CHDF) for his perioperative renal management. Nafamostat mesilate was applied to the CHDF circuit as anti-coagulant therapy. Serum creatinin, urea nitrogen and potassium were maintained at the optimal level. CHDF was continued until the twelfth day after operation, and maintainace hemodialysis was re-started thereafter. CHDF is widely accepted for blood purification in the intensive care unit, and applied safely even in patients with unstable hemodynamic conditions. we considered that CHDF might have helped to avoid multiple organic failure in this case.

Because supraventricular tachyarrhythmias after open heart surgery are often resistant to DC cardioversion and treatment with antiarrhythmic agents, we sometimes have difficulty in the postoperative management of these arrhythmias. We attempted to use intravenous infusion of diltiazem hydrochloride (3-5mcg/kg/min) for 6 patients with supraventricular tachyarrhythmias, 5 of whom had atrial fibrillation and 1 with sinus tachycardia after open heart surgery. The ventricular rate was remarkably reduced from the pretreatment value by this infusion therapy. Diltiazem infusion during atrial fibrillation in 5 patients regularized the ventricular rate (normalization of R-R intervals). These results indicate that diltiazem was effective in obtaining almost constant preload with each cardiac cycle for the postoperative deteriorated cardiac muscle. The hemodynamic parameters obtained with the Swan-Ganz catheter showed that both right and left ventricular functions improved after the infusion of diltiazem. There was no adverse effect due to the administration of diltiazem. We concluded that the intravenous infusion of diltiazem is an effective method to manage supraventricular tachyarrhythmias after open heart sugery without deterioration of the cardiac function or side effects.