OBJECTIVE: The purposes of this study were to assess the clinical features of cardiac auscultatory events in outpatients in general internal medicine, and to make teaching suggestions for education on cardiac auscultatory skills in primary care medicine.
METHODS: The subjects included 104 consecutive outpatients with chest symptoms, and cardiac auscultatory findings were assessed prospectively.
RESULTS: Cardiac auscultatory events were found in 32 (30.8%) among the 104 subjects. The subjects with cardiac auscultatory events were significantly older than those without cardiac auscultatory events (p<0.05) . The cardiac auscultatory events of the 32 subjects were as follows; splitting of the first heart sound in 2 subjects, mid-systolic click in 2 subjects, fourth heart sound in 3 subjects, systolic murmur in 24 subjects (including one subject with both systolic and diastolic murmurs), and diastolic murmur in 2 subjects. Aortic stenosis was diagnosed in 2 subjects, and mitral regurgitation was diagnosed in one subject of the 24 subjects with a systolic murmur. One subject with both systolic and diastolic murmurs was considered to have a relative systolic murmur with aortic regurgitation. The other 20 subjects with a systolic murmur were considered to have innocent murmurs. The 2 subjects with a diastolic murmur were diagnosed as having aortic regurgitation.
CONCLUSIONS: We suggest that the following cardiac ausculatory events should be given educational priority in primary care; 1) Fourth heart sounds as an extra heart sound. 2) Innocent murmurs: characteristics of innocent murmurs and discrimination from systolic murmurs caused by organic heart disease. 3) Systolic murmurs caused by aortic stenosis or mitral regurgitation. 4) Diastolic high-pitched murmurs caused by aortic regurgitation.

Pseudoaneurysm of the uterine artery is rare as a cause to delayed postpartum hemorrhage. Nowadays, uterine pseudoaneurysm is often treated by uterine artery embolization. The outcome is favorable. Here, we report a case of delayed postpartum hemorrhage following Cesarean section, which was caused from a rupture of uterine pseudoaneurysm. The patient was at the point of death from excessive bleeding but successfully treated by uterine artery embolization (UAE). In encountering a case of postpartum hemorrhage after Cesarean delivery or Dilation & Curettage, it is indispensable to check the abnormal blood flow in a color Doppler examination.

The purpose of this prospective study was to examine the injury characteristics in collegiate women’s lacrosse players. Injury data were collected from the Division I collegiate women’s lacrosse team for a 2-year. The total athlete-hours and athlete-exposures over the 2-year period were 27,621 and 13,437, respectively. The total number of injury was 309 injuries, and the total incidence rate was 11.19 injuries (95% confidence interval, 9.94 — 12.43) per 1000 athlete-hours and 23.00 injuries (20.43 — 25.56) per 1000 athlete-exposures, respectively. The most frequent location of injury was the ankle, followed by the knee and the thigh (20.1%, 14.6%, and 10.7% of all injuries). The proportion of lower extremity injuries accounted for 73.5% of all injuries. The most common types of injury was sprains and muscle cramps/spasms (24.9% and 24.6%, respectively). Overuse, contact (e.g., other players, the cross, and the ball), and non-contact injury was the 3 most common cause of injury (39.1%, 24.9%, and 17.2%, respectively). The primary injury characteristics of collegiate women’s lacrosse players were non-contact ankle sprain. Injury recurrence accounted for 26.1% of all injuries, and the most common period required for the player to return to practice and/or games was between 3 and 7 days. Midfield position player suffered the most number of injuries compared to other position player. An understanding of the injury characteristics of women’s lacrosse players may facilitate the development of the comprehensive strategy for injury prevention which is recommended by the sports medicine community.

We report a case of successful saphenous vein bypass grafting for superior mesenteric artery stenosis. A 50-year-old man complained of abdominal pain which was not induced by either eating or defecation. He was admitted to our hospital and examinations of the gastrointestinal tract revealed no abnormality. Angiography showed stenosis of the superior mesenteric artery (SMA), but not of the celiac artery (CA) or inferior mesenteric artery (IMA). We speculated that his symptom was due to SMA stenosis and poor collateral circulations from the CA, IMA and internal iliac arteries. Saphenous vein bypass grafting for SMA was undertaken successfully and abdominal pain disappeared completely.

An increase of aortic valvular disease associated with congenital bicuspid aortic valve is observed due to the relative decrease of rheumatic valvular diseases. A total of 24 patients with aortic valvular disease associated with congenital bicuspid aortic valve underwent surgical treatment at our institution during the period from January, 1997 to December, 1999. These 24 patients constituted 46.2% (24/52) of all cases of surgical operations for aortic valvular disease. The age of the patients ranged from 17 to 83 years (mean 62 years). They consisted of 16 men (66.7%) and 8 women. Two patients had infective endocarditis. The classification of congenital bicuspid aortic valve was right-left cusp type in 15 patients (raphe+: 11), anterior-posterior cusp type in 9 patients (raphe+: 9). We performed aortic valve replacement in 22 patients, aortic root replacement in 1 patient and aortic root remodeling in 1 patient in combination with mitral valve plasty in 3 patients, coronary artery bypass grafting in 3 patients and closure of the atrial septal defect (ASD) in 1 patient. We detected ASD in 1 patient, ventricular septal defect in 1 patient and high-posterior take-off right coronary artery in 1 patient. Patients with stenosis often have a small aortic annulus and severe post-stenotic aortic dilation. Preoperative and intraoperative evaluation is important in cases of aortic valvular disease associated with congenital bicuspid aortic valve.

Oral adsorbents used in the primary treatment of paraquat intoxication were studied in saline to evaluate their effectiveness in terms of removal ratio and removal rate.
Forty kinds of materials were tested as paraquat adsorbents.
Although cation exchange resin had the greatest removal ratio for paraquat, a high removal ratio was registered by an activated carbon derived from petroleum pitch. A significant correlation between removal ratio and the degree of crosslinkage in the resin was found.
The degree of paraquat concentration decrease was high when cation exchange resin was used. A significant correlation was found between the kinetic constant, which was calculated from the equation for a first-order reaction, and the degree of crosslinkage in the resin.

A 3-month-old girl of univentricular heart of left ventricular type with atresia of left atrioventricular valve (LAVV) and coarctation of the aorta (Co/AO) is presented. UCG and angiography revealed concordant AV connection with straddling RAVV with transposed great arteries [SDDT]. The following pressures (in mmHg) were noted on catheterization: RA mean 1 (a=3, v=1), LA mean 12 (a=17, v=14), LV 84/0/8, Ao 81/41, and PA 74/39. Patent foramen ovale (PFO) was restrictive and balloon atrioseptostomy was not feasible. Blalock-Hanlon atrial septectomy (8×6mm), subclavian flap aortoplasy (SFA) and pulmonary arterial banding were performed simultaneously under bilateral thoracotomy. Acute renal failure occurred after surgery and the girl required peritoneal dialysis for 5 days. At 6 months after surgery, girl is doing well. There will be a predictable fall in pulmonary vascular resistance after atrial septectomy and SFA with a ligation of PDA may result transient increase in systemic resistance. Therefore, atrial septectomy and SFA in conjunction with pulmonary arterial banding should be done simultaneously.

We performed tricuspid annuloplasty aggressively in association with mitral and combined mitral and aortic valve disease. Because tricuspid regurgitation (TR) may produce significant morbidity if not corrected. From March 1986 to September 1990, for the purpose of studying the clinicopathology of the biopsied right ventricular myocardium in 54 patients with mitral valvular disease, the diameter of right ventricular myocardial cells and diffuse interstitial fibrosis of biopsied myocardium were measured quantitatively. The degree of diffuse interstitial fibrosis was assessed by the point-counting method, and mean percentage fibrosis (% fibrosis) was noted as 16.1%, % fibrosis was correlated with the severity of TR (r=0.36). Mean diameter of right ventricular myocardial cells was 19.3μm in size. The diameter of right ventricular myocardial cell was correlated with pulmonary arterial pressure (r=0.51). More aggressive narrowing of tricuspid valve ring using DeVega's method was performed on 39 of 54 patients. The evaluation of TR was done by Doppler echo. Postoperative residual TR was observed in four patients of total postoperative patients within mean follow-up period of 41.0 months. In the 4 patients, % fibrosis were in high % fibrosis (>20%). In comparison to the group with low % fibrosis (<15%) (n=27), the group with high % fibrosis (>20%) (n=9) was more serious in severity of TR by Doppler echo (2.4 vs. 1.7), age (58.2 vs. 51.6), NYHA classification (3.2 vs. 2.6) before surgery. In conclusion, open right ventricular myocardial biopsy findings suggest that the degree of myocardial fibrosis is correlated with severity of tricuspid regurgitation. And the patients whose % fibrosis are more than 20% are presumed poor right ventricular function. The diameter of right ventricular myocardial cell is correlated with pulmonary arterial pressure, that is, right ventricular hypertrophy is associated with pulmonary hypertension.