The patient was a 61-year-old woman. In April 2005, she suffered a cerebral infarction and became paralyzed on the right side. In June 2005, a stent graft was placed to treat significant stenosis of the right coronary artery. Computed tomography (CT) in October 2006 revealed widespread patent aortic dissection in both the true and false lumens, extending from the origin of the ascending aorta to the three arch branches and both femoral arteries. Preoperative coronary angiography also showed occlusion of the left anterior descending branch. As a result of these findings, widespread Stanford type A chronic aortic dissection with coronary artery disease was diagnosed, and surgery was performed in February 2007. Brachiocephalic artery dissection and severe stenosis of the right subclavian artery were present, and the left common carotid artery and left subclavian artery were also dissected distally. In addition, both the true and false lumens were patent distal to the aortic arch, with the major abdominal branch bifurcating from both lumens and the dissection extending to the femoral artery, requiring cannulation of both lumens. During surgery, extracorporeal circulation was established by means of blood removal from the right atrium, transapical aortic cannulation, and cannulation of both luminens of the left femoral artery, in an effort to prevent malperfusion due to hypothermia. For revascularization, a Y-shaped artificial blood vessel was used to reconstruct the three arch branches first (the arch-first technique), after which an I-shaped artificial blood vessel was used to form anastomoses distally with both lumens, ensuring perfusion to the false lumen. The proximal anastomosis was then formed, and finally, a single coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) branch was performed using a great saphenous vein graft. No postoperative complications were encountered, and CT showed good blood flow through both luminens below the graft and aortic arch. The patient was discharged from hospital and returned home in an anbulatory condition independently 18 days postoperatively. In this case of widespread type A chronic aortic dissection, the cannulation site was selected and the order of reconstruction and methods of anastomosis were carefully chosen to avoid cardiac malperfusion during arch replacement, resulting in a good outcome.

The diagnosis of ruptured dissecting limited abdominal aortic aneurysm was made in four cases. The sex ratio (M/F) was 1/3, and mean age was 63.5 years (from 53 to 78yr). Only one of these cases die due to intraoperative bleeding. Other three cases were discharged from our hospital. Intraluminal proximal anastomosis after fixed dissected aortic wall due to mattress suture and end to end anastomosis with reinforcement by Teflon felt were good results. The one case who was anastomosed simple intraluminal method has pseudoaneurysm in the proximal portion. It is important to diagnose preoperatively dissection and to make end to end anastomosis with Teflon felt.

A 60-year-old man with impending rupture of abdominal aortic aneurysm was transferred to our hospital. The patient entered a state of shock because of rupture during a CT scan examination. Emergency in site reconstruction with a dacron Y-graft was performed. There was massive intraperitoneal bleeding but no apparent abscess formation around the aneurysm. No drain was placed. A subcutaneous abscess that developed postoperatively was cured by open drainage and local antibiotic administration. Culture from both the aortic wall and the subcutaneous abscess revealed Salmonella infection. After subsequent intravenous antibiotic therapy for 45 days, the patient was discharged without any evidence of remaining infection.

A free-floating ball thrombus in the left atrium is a rare occurrence. Few patients who developed a ball thrombus after mitral valve replacement have been reported. Our patient was a 58-year-old man who had undergone mitral valve replacement in 1981. Since bleeding gastric cancer had been diagnosed anticoagulant therapy had been 4 days before admission. On admission, echocardiography revealed a large thrombus in the left appendage. First, he underwent total gastrectomy for gastric cancer. After the operation, he developed aspiration pneumonia, and was intubated. We observed that a large thrombus had moved from the left appendage to the left atrium. Emergency operation was successfull.

Between Nov. 1981 and Dec. 1990, seventy-seven patients underwent surgical repair for abdominal aortic aneurysm (56, non-ruptured and 21, ruptured). There were no operative and hospital deaths in the non-ruptured group and 4 deaths (19%) in the ruptured group. To improve operative results by means of decreasing hemorrhagic blood loss and operative time, we have ameliolated some points of the technical procedures as follows. Dissection of the perianeurysmal tissue was limited to only the neck and anterior peritoneal surface of the aneurysm. Taping to keep the aorta and distal iliac artery was not applied and vascular clamps were placed without dissection of the posterior walls of the aorta and distal arteries. Proximal anastomosis of the Y-vascular prostheses were performed by the inclusion technique. The end-to-side method was used in distal anastomosis to the external iliac arteries routing behind the ureter. Even when aneurysmal dilatation involved the common iliac arteries, the orifices of the common iliac arteries were closed by continuous sutures bilaterally. In ruptured cases too, this standard technique was used without application of special means for proximal cross-clamping. Postoperative arteriography or enhanced computed tomography reveald thrombosis and reduction in size of residual aneurysm of the common iliac artery. By these improved surgical techniques, 25 cases (45%) of the 56 non-ruptured group had surgical correction of the abdominal aortic aneurysm without using homologous blood transfusion. Cumulative 5-year survival rate by Kaplan-Meier method of non-ruptured and ruptured group was 87% and 49% respectively.

A 54-year-old man developed cardiogenic shock after acute myocardial infarction. Urgent coronary angiogram revealed complete occlusion at proximal portion of the right coronary artery and severe stenosis at just proximal site of the left anterior descending branch. Following thrombolytic therapy was not successful and he was sent to the operating room for coronary artery bypass surgery under external cardiac massage after 6hr from the onset. Three aorto-coronary bypasses were made to left anterior descending branch, first diagonal branch and right coronary artery using saphenous vein grafts by aortic cross-clamping of 67min. He fell into severe low cardiac output syndrome and could not be weaned from the cardiopulmonary bypass even by catecholamine infusions and IABP support. Veno-arterial bypass consisted of centrifugal pump and membranous artificial oxygenator was instituted. Venous blood was drained from the right atrium using percutaneous cannula via the right femoral vein and oxygenated blood was returned to the right subclavian artery. Hemodynamics recovered dramatically and after 71hr of this assisted circulation he was weaned from veno-arterial bypass. Activated coagulation time was maintained within 180-200sec. During this period, the centrifugal pump and oxygenator was not necessary to change and no clot was seen in the bypass system. He discharged from our hospital after 2 mo, postoperatively and now he is doing well as NYHA class-II 8 mo. postoperatively.

We experienced a 51-year-old male case of CABG whose graftography one month after CABG revealed a 0.5cm venous bypass graft aneurysm. Anginal pain recurred in the eighth month after CABG. Re-graftography showed enlargement of the aneurysm and stenosis of the graft at the same site. Re-CABG was carried out successfully and his postoperative course was good. Venous graft aneurysm is a comparatively rare complication, and that of the present case was considered to be most ascribable to the fragility of the graft, caused by mediastinitis secondary to the first CABG. Thrombus formation was noted in the aneurysm, with a risk of causing rupture or myocardial infarction. Therefore, such graft aneurysms should be treated by re-CABG as soon as possible after detection.

A 27-year-old female with Marfan's syndrome underwent successful emergency surgery for rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Annulo-aortic ectasia with a saccular aneurysm of the aortic arch was revealed by angiography after the initial operation. Cabrol's operation with replacement of the aortic arch was performed. Because bleeding from the distal anastomotic portion was uncontrollable, the segment was ligated and an extra-anatomical bypass was performed from the ascending aortic graft to the bilateral femoral arteries. Intra-graft balloon pumping was carried out in the extra-anatomical bypass graft while the patient was in low cardiac output condition after the second operation. This was considered to be an effective circulatory assist procedure.

We present a rare case of mitral stenosis with bilateral pulmonary arteriovenous fistulae (PAVF). A 55-year-old female who complained of dyspnea did not have pulmonary hypertension. She underwent successfully mitral valve replacement with an artificial valve 2 months after transcatheter coil embolization for PAVF. The combination with mitral valve replacement and transcatheter embolization is regarded as a useful procedure for mitral valve disease associated with PAVF.

Between 1984 and 1994, 58 patients underwent operations for type A aortic dissection. A sutureless ringed intraluminal graft was used in 9 of the 58 cases. The patients ranged from 47 to 74 years old (mean, 60.4 years). Six patients were discharged from the hospital and three patients died. The operative mortality rate for the 9 patients was 33.3% and for the other 49 patients it was 20.4%. Post-operative aortograms revealed a remaining false lumen in 5 of the 6 discharged patients. The result of the operation with the sutureless ringed intraluminal graft was not satisfactory. Therefore, we prefer to resect and replace the dissected aorta using the prosthetic graft rather than repair with the sutureless ringed intraluminal graft.