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Americans spend a significant amount of money on healthcare each year. There is an increase in insurance premiums, high deductibles, and other out-of-pocket expenses. There has been an inflationary effect across the board in the medical industry.

The study investigated the relationship between levosimendan treatment and acute kidney injury (AKI) among cardiac surgery patients. It analyzed the experiences of 854 LEVO-CTS patients who were undergoing the treatment. AKI is associated with high treatment cost, mortality, and morbidity, which may occur after cardiac surgery. Therefore patients who have undergone cardiac surgery are likely to experience AKI. Jawitz et al. (2021) reported that AKI associated with cardiac surgery has a prevalence of 40%.

TransMedics Group has secured approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its OCS Heart System that is developed for use with organs collected from donors after brain death (DBD).

The OCS Heart System is designed to preserve DBD donor hearts deemed unsuitable for procurement and transplantation at initial assessment due to limitations of prolonged cold static cardioplegic preservation.

Valvular heart diseases (VHD) that cause stenosis and regurgitation in heart valves, such as congenital, rheumatic, and degenerative heart illnesses, require constant clinical monitoring. Aortic or pulmonary valve anomalies are responsible for 33% of congenital heart disorders. Although patients with VHD have received transcatheter therapies and minimally invasive operations, the bulk of valve replacement surgeries still use open-heart techniques.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the Portico with FlexNav (Abbott) transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) system for patients with "symptomatic, severe aortic stenosis who are at high or extreme risk for open-heart surgery," the company announced recently.

The risk of bleeding varies with the type of anticoagulant agent used. The incidence of bleeding while on warfarin has been estimated at 15-20% per year, with life-threatening bleeding occurring.
At a rate of 1-3% per year. Providers should remember that all patients with emergent or life-threatening bleeding require attention to basic interventions, including cessation of anticoagulation therapy, blood product transfusions, and assessment for airway protection.

The article “Radiation-Associated Coronary Disease in Young Cancer Survivors” highlights important developments in radiotherapy (RT) research in reducing and evaluating coronary artery disease (CAD). Many significant findings have surfaced from well-executed research studies, evolving the therapeutic landscape and changing how we treat and monitor breast cancer patients post-RT.

This study aims to test the effectiveness of microcirculatory imaging in a similar sublingual spot that uses dark incident field (IDF) imaging to assess successful weaning from VA-ECMO and compare IDF imaging to echocardiographic factors. According to the authors, there is increased incorporation of Veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO) in the treatment of cardiogenic shock (CS). The marker success is still largely unknown (Akin et al., 2017).

It's difficult to strike a balance between systemic anticoagulation and clotting. The endothelium manages the equilibrium between anticoagulant and prothrombotic systems in proper hemostasis. Because of the blood-surface interaction during ECLS, systemic anticoagulation is required to reduce the risk of clotting. UNFH has a short half-life, is easy to titrate at the bedside, and is reversible with protamine.

Percutaneous veno‐arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA‐ECMO) is a resource used in treating patients with cardiogenic shock. The protocols of weaning from the VA‐ECMO are not yet well defined. The research carried out from the past few years shows that the weaning rate from VA‐ECMO is still low, but research shows that there is a higher potential of increasing the rate in the next few years.

Graft patency is significant in determining the long-term medical success after coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). Saphenous vein graft (SVG) continues to be the most usual conduit in CABG.  Compared to the conventional (CON) SVG technique, the atraumatic No Touch (NT) of harvesting the SVG with its pedicle intact has proven to be more effective in the histological and biochemical aspects of the NT SVG.

Cardiac surgery is accompanied by high risks of blood loss and further transfusions during the operation. Patient blood management is the specialized protocol carried out in perioperative settings to improve the patients' outcomes and reduces the incidences of bleeding and transfusions.