Abstract： Quality of life （QOL） refers to an individual’s perception and subjective evaluation of their health and well-being, and has become an important index to evaluate the outcomes of clinical treatment in the last past decades. There are a large number of different instruments to evaluate QOL, and the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey （SF-36） is currently one of the most widely used instruments. In recent years, SF-36 has been used to evaluate QOL of valvular heart disease patients to investigate the risk factors those influence their postoperative QOL, provide more preoperative evaluation tools for clinical physicians, and improve postoperative outcomes of patients with valvular heart disease. However, it is now just the beginning to use SF-36 to examine QOL of valvular heart disease patients. Because of significant differences in sample size, follow-up period, country and culture, current research has some controversial results. This review focuses on the progress in evaluating QOL in postoperative patients with valvular heart disease using SF-36.
Transcatheter aortic valve replacement has revolutionized the management of aortic stenosis and become the gold standard for the treatment of symptomatic and severe aortic valve stenosis in elderly patients. With the improvement in design and materials, newer generation transcatheter aortic valve prostheses had overcome the limitations of early-generation devices that were susceptible to paravalvular leak, atrioventricular block and vascular complications, to a certain extent. This review provides an update on the latest advances in transcatheter aortic valve prostheses.
Heart valve disease (HVD) is one of the common cardiovascular diseases. Heart sound is an important physiological signal for diagnosing HVDs. This paper proposed a model based on combination of basic component features and envelope autocorrelation features to detect early HVDs. Initially, heart sound signals lasting 5 minutes were denoised by empirical mode decomposition (EMD) algorithm and segmented. Then the basic component features and envelope autocorrelation features of heart sound segments were extracted to construct heart sound feature set. Then the max-relevance and min-redundancy (MRMR) algorithm was utilized to select the optimal mixed feature subset. Finally, decision tree, support vector machine (SVM) and k-nearest neighbor (KNN) classifiers were trained to detect the early HVDs from the normal heart sounds and obtained the best accuracy of 99.9% in clinical database. Normal valve, abnormal semilunar valve and abnormal atrioventricular valve heart sounds were classified and the best accuracy was 99.8%. Moreover, normal valve, single-valve abnormal and multi-valve abnormal heart sounds were classified and the best accuracy was 98.2%. In public database, this method also obtained the good overall accuracy. The result demonstrated this proposed method had important value for the clinical diagnosis of early HVDs.
Objective To evaluate the left ventricular remodeling after valve replacement for valvular heart disease with giant left ventricle. Methods The clinical material of 92 patients with valvular heart disease and giant left ventricle after valve replacement was retrospectively reviewed. The results of ultrosonic cardial gram（UCG） and the changes of cardiac function before and after operation were compared. Results There was no operative death. The value of left ventricular end-diastolic dimension （LVEDD）, left ventricular end-systolic dimension （LVESD）, left atrial dimension （LAD）, left ventricular ejection fraction （LVEF）, left ventricular fractional shortening （LVFS）, stroke volume （SV） and cardiothoracic ratio in 2 weeks and 2 months after operation were more decreased than those before operation（P〈0. 05）. The value of LVEDD and LAD in 2 months after operation were much more decreased than those in 2 weeks after operation （P〈0. 05）. The cardiac function in early stage after operation was more decreased than that before operation,but the cases of cardiac functional class Ⅱ （38 cases, 41.3% ） in 2 months after operation was significantly more than those before operation （5 cases, 5.4 % ）. Conclusions The early effect of left ventricular remodeling is significant for valvular heart disease with giant left ventricle after valve replacement. The diameter of left ventricle and left atrial are significantly decreased after operation. The protection for cardiac function should be carefully taken in order to prevent the occurrence of complication after operation.
Abstract: Objective To observe the physical characteristics of decellularized porcine pulmonary valved conduits crosslinked by carbodiimide (EDC). Methods [WTBZ]Twenty porcine pulmonary valved arteries were mobilized on relative asepsis condition. They were cut longitudinally into three samples at the junction position of pulmonary valve (every sample was comprised of a part of the pulmonary conduit wall and the corresponding valve). The samples were randomly divided into three groups by lotdrawing method. Group A was the control group which was made up of the fresh porcine arterial valved conduit samples without any other treatments. Group B was comprised of porcine pulmonary samples decellularized by trypsindetergent digestion. Group Cincluded the decellularized porcine pulmonary samples crosslinked by EDC. We observed the water content, thickness, tensile strength, and shrinkage temperature of all the samples, based on which the physical characeteristics of these samples were analyzed. Results [WTBZ]Complete cellfree-pulmonary conduit matrix was achieved by trypsindetergent digestion. Compared with group A, in group B, the water content of pulmonary wall was significantly higher (P=0.000), while the water content of pulmonary valve was not significantly different; the thickness of pulmonary wall and valve (P=0.000，0.000) and tensile strength of pulmonary wall and valve (Plt;0.01） was significantly lower, while shrinkage temperature was not significantly different. Compared with group B, in group C, the water content of pulmonary wall was significantly lower (P=0.000), while the water content of pulmonary valve, and the thickness of pulmonary wall and valve were not significantly different; the tensile strength of pulmonary wall (Plt;0.01) and valve (P=0.000), and the shrinkage temperature of them (P=0.000, 0.000) were significantly higher. Compared with group A, in group C, the water content of pulmonary wall and valve, and the tensile strength of them were not statistically different, while the thickness of pulmonary wall and valve was significantly lower (P=0.000, 0.000), and the shrinkage temperature of them was significantly higher (P=0.000, 0.000). Conclusion [WTBZ]EDC crosslinking method is available for treating decellularized porcine pulmonary valved conduits in order to enhance its tensile strength, and decrease water content of pulmonary wall.
Objective To compare the effect of monopolar and bipolar radiofrequency ablation in patients with atrial fibrillation and concomitant rheumatic heart disease. Methods The clinical data of 261 patients who underwent valve replacement and radiofrequency Maze Ⅲ procedure in Shanghai First People's Hospital from 2010 to 2015 were retrospectively analyzed. According to the radiofrequency ablation system, patients were assigned to a monopolar radiofrequency ablation group (n=209, 129 males, 80 females, aged 59.6±9.7 years) and a bipolar radiofrequency ablation group (n=52, 36 males, 16 females, aged 58.6±11.2 years). After procedures, clinical factors such as patients' basic information, perioperative complication and mortality, the elimination rate of atrial fibrillation were measured. Results There was no statistic difference in perioperative morbidity and mortality between two groups. The ablation time of the monopolar radiofrequency ablation group was longer than that of the bipolar group (29.7±3.3 minvs. 22.3±7.8 min,P=0.035). Postoperative diameter of left atrium was reduced in both groups. Compared with the monopolar radiofrequency ablation group, bipolar group had a better elimination rate of atrial fibrillation at three months and one year follow-up (82.0%vs. 66.3%,P=0.037; 80.0%vs. 59.6%,P=0.008). Conclusion Valve replacement combined with radiofrequency Maze Ⅲ procedure is safe and efficient. Compared with monopolar radiofrequency ablation, bipolar radiofrequency ablation has advantage on elimination rate of atrial fibrillation, ablation time and cardiopulmonary bypass time.
Objective To establish a machine learning based framework to rapidly screen out high-risk patients who may develop atrial fibrillation (AF) from patients with valvular heart disease and provide the information related to risk prediction to clinicians as clinical guidance for timely treatment decisions. Methods Clinical data were retrospectively collected from 1 740 patients with valvular heart disease at West China Hospital of Sichuan University and its branches, including 831 (47.76%) males and 909 (52.24%) females at an average age of 54 years. Based on these data, we built classical logistic regression, three standard machine learning models, and three integrated machine learning models for risk prediction and characterization analysis of AF. We compared the performance of machine learning models with classical logistic regression and selected the best two models, and applied the SHAP algorithm to provide interpretability at the population and single-unit levels. In addition, we provided visualization of feature analysis results. ResultsThe Stack model performed best among all models (AF detection rate 85.6%, F1 score 0.753), while XGBoost outperformed the standard machine learning models (AF detection rate 71.9%, F1 score 0.732), and both models performed significantly better than the logistic regression model (AF detection rate 65.2%, F1 score 0.689). SHAP algorithm showed that left atrial internal diameter, mitral E peak flow velocity (Emv), right atrial internal diameter output per beat, and cardiac function class were the most important features affecting AF prediction. Both the Stack model and XGBoost had excellent predictive ability and interpretability. ConclusionThe Stack model has the highest AF detection performance and comprehensive performance. The Stack model loaded with the SHAP algorithm can be used to screen high-risk patients for AF and reveal the corresponding risk characteristics. Our framework can be used to guide clinical intervention and monitoring of AF.
The 2020 ACC/AHA Guideline for the Management of Patients with Valvular Heart Disease not only updates aortic valve stenosis, mitral regurgitation, prosthetic valves, infective endocarditis and antithrombotic treatment on the basis of the 2017 guidelines update for valvular heart disease, but also involves aortic valve regurgitation, bicuspid aortic valve, mitral stenosis, tricuspid regurgitation, combined valve disease, pregnancy with valvular disease, valve disease complicated with coronary heart disease, valve disease complicated with non-cardiac surgery and the prospect of comprehensive management of valve disease. It covers a wide range of contents, which are introduced in detail and comprehensively. This paper interprets some highlights and core issues, including the top 10 take-home messages, the severity of valvular heart disease, and the updates in the management of aortic valve stenosis, aortic valve regurgitation, bicuspid aortic valve, mitral stenosis and mitral regurgitation.