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BACKGROUND: Maladaptive remodelling mechanisms occur in patients with repaired tetralogy of Fallot (rToF) resulting in a cycle of metabolic and structural changes. Biventricular shape analysis may indicate mechanisms associated with adverse events independent of pulmonary regurgitant volume index (PRVI). We aimed to determine novel remodelling patterns associated with adverse events in patients with rToF using shape and function analysis. METHODS: Biventricular shape and function were studied in 192 patients with rToF (median time from TOF repair to baseline evaluation 13.5 years). Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to identify shape differences between patients with and without adverse events. Adverse events included death, arrhythmias, and cardiac arrest with median follow-up of 10 years. RESULTS: LDA and PCA showed that shape characteristics pertaining to adverse events included a more circular left ventricle (LV) (decreased eccentricity), dilated (increased sphericity) LV base, increased right ventricular (RV) apical sphericity, and decreased RV basal sphericity. Multivariate LDA showed that the optimal discriminative model included only RV apical ejection fraction and one PCA mode associated with a more circular and dilated LV base (AUC = 0.77). PRVI did not add value, and shape changes associated with increased PRVI were not predictive of adverse outcomes. CONCLUSION: Pathological remodelling patterns in patients with rToF are significantly associated with adverse events, independent of PRVI. Mechanisms related to incident events include LV basal dilation with a reduced RV apical ejection fraction.

Open in new tab Download slide OBJECTIVES Decellularized aortic homografts (DAH) were introduced in 2008 as a further option for paediatric aortic valve replacement (AVR). METHODS Prospective, multicentre follow-up of all paediatric patients receiving DAH for AVR in 8 European centres. RESULTS A total of 143 DAH were implanted between February 2008 and February 2023 in 137 children (106 male, 74%) with a median age of 10.8 years (interquartile range 6.6–14.6). Eighty-four (59%) had undergone previous cardiac operations and 24 (17%) had undergone previous AVR. The median implanted DAH diameter was 21 mm (interquartile range 19–23). The median operation duration was 348 min (227–439) with a median cardiopulmonary bypass time of 212 min (171–257) and a median cross-clamp time of 135 min (113–164). After a median follow-up of 5.3 years (3.3–7.2, max. 15.2 years), the primary efficacy end-points peak gradient (median 14 mmHg, 9–28) and regurgitation (median 0.5, interquartile range 0–1, grade 0–3) showed good results but an increase over time. Freedom from death/explantation/endocarditis/bleeding/thromboembolism at 5 years were 97.8 ± 1.2/88.7 ± 3.3/99.1 ± 0.9/100 and 99.2 ± 0.8%, respectively. Freedom from death/explantation/endocarditis/bleeding/thromboembolism at 10 years were 96.3 ± 1.9/67.1 ± 8.0/93.6 ± 3.9/98.6 ± 1.4 and 86.9 ± 11.6%, respectively. In total, 21 DAH were explanted. Seven were replaced by a mechanical AVR, 1 Ross operation was performed and a re-do DAH was implanted in 13 patients with no redo mortality. The calculated expected adverse events were lower for DAH compared to cryopreserved homograft patients (mean age 8.4 years), and in the same range as for Ross patients (9.2 years) and mechanical AVR (13.0 years). CONCLUSIONS This large-scale prospective analysis demonstrates excellent mid-term survival using DAH with adverse event rates comparable to paediatric Ross procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To embrace the need for freely accessible training data sets originating from the real world, in the ELISE project, we integrate source data from a pediatric intensive care unit and provide it to researchers. Objective: We present our vision, initial results and steps on a trail towards an evolutionary open pediatric intensive care data set. Methods: Our evolution plan for the data set comprises three steps. The final data set will include raw clinical data and labels on critical outcomes such as organ dysfunction and sepsis, generated automatically by computerized and well-evaluated methods. Results: First step resulted in an initial version data set available in a central repository. Conclusions: Our approach has great potential to provide a comprehensive open intensive care data set labeled for critical pediatric outcomes and, thus, contributing to overcome the current lack of real-world pediatric intensive care data usable for training data-driven algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical care can benefit from analyzing data by machine learning approaches for supporting clinical routine and guiding clinical decision-making. Developing data-driven approaches for an early detection of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) in patients of pediatric intensive care and exploring the possibility of an approach using training data sets labeled automatically beforehand by knowledge-based approaches rather than clinical experts. Using naïve Bayes classifier and an artificial neuronal network (ANN), trained with real data labeled by (1) domain experts ad (2) a knowledge-based decision support system (CDSS). Accuracies were evaluated by the data set labeled by domain experts using a 10-fold cross validation. The ANN approach trained with data labeled by domain experts yielded a specificity of 0.9139 and sensitivity of 0.8979, whereas the approach trained with a data set labeled by a knowledge-based CDSS achieves a specificity of 0.9220 and a sensitivity of 0.8887. ANN yielded promising results for data-driven detection of pediatric SIRS with real data. Our comparison shows the feasibility of using training data labeled automatically by knowledge-based approaches rather than manually allocated by experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite considerable progress in heart transplantation, pediatric waiting list mortality is still high, and often patients do not have enough time to wait. We hypothesized that extending the donor criteria regarding age and weight mismatch does not significantly affect the early follow‐up. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed our pediatric heart transplantation patients operated on from 2014 to 2020 for high (>3.0) or low (<0.6) donor‐recipient weight ratio (DRWR) or chronological age mismatches (donor organ >5 years older than recipient age). This patient cohort constituted "mismatched heart transplantations" (mHTX). We compared mHTX preoperative status, postoperative course, 1‐year survival, and early clinical follow‐up to standard pediatric heart transplantations (sHTX). Results: We performed 20 pediatric heart transplantations—10 mHTX and 10 sHTX. The minimum DRWR was 0.44, the maximum was 5.60, and the maximum age mismatch was 42.6 years. Median days in the intensive care unit (p =.436) and time‐to‐first‐rejection episode (p =.925) were comparable. Nine patients in each group were alive after 1 year, two patients were operated within 1 year of follow‐up. One mHTX patient developed cardiac allograft vasculopathy after 15 months and died 648 days after transplantation (p =.237). All other patients were alive at the end of follow‐up and in good clinical conditions (median follow‐up for mHTX was 732.5 days, 1149.5 days for sHTX). Conclusion: Postoperative course and early follow‐up after mHTX were comparable to sHTX. In urgent clinical situations, extended donor criteria may be considered an additional option for pediatric heart transplantation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Structured reporting allows a high grade of standardization and thus a safe and unequivocal report communication. In the past years, the radiological societies have started several initiatives to base radiological reports on structured reporting rather than free text reporting., Methods: Upon invitation of the working group for Cardiovascular Imaging of the German Society of Radiology, in 2018 an interdisciplinary group of Radiologists, Cardiologists, Pediatric Cardiologists and Cardiothoracic surgeons -all experts on the field of cardiovascular MR and CT imaging- met for interdisciplinary consensus meetings at the University Hospital Cologne. The aim of these meetings was to develop and consent templates for structured reporting in cardiac MR and CT of various cardiovascular diseases., Results: Two templates for structured reporting of CMR in ischemia imaging and vitality imaging and two templates for structured reporting of CT imaging for planning Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (TAVI; pre-TAVI-CT) and coronary CT were discussed, consented and transferred to a HTML 5/IHR MRRT compatible format. The templates were made available for free use on the website www.befundung.drg.de., Conclusion: This paper suggests consented templates in German language for the structured reporting of cross-sectional CMR imaging of ischemia and vitality as well as reporting of CT imaging pre-TAVI and coronary CT. The implementation of these templates is aimed at providing a constant level of high reporting quality and increasing the efficiency of report generation as well as a clinically based communication of imaging results., Key Points: · Structured reporting offers a constant level of high reporting quality and increases the efficiency of report generation as well as a clinically based communication of imaging results.. · For the first time templates in German language for the structured reporting of CMR imaging of ischemia and vitality and CT imaging pre-TAVI and coronary CT are reported.. · These templates will be made available on the website www.befundung.drg.de and can be commented via strukturierte-befundung@drg.de.., Zitierweise: · Soschynski M, Bunck AC, Beer M et al. Structured Reporting in Cross-Sectional Imaging of the Heart: Reporting Templates for CMR Imaging of Ischemia and Myocardial Viability and for Cardiac CT Imaging of Coronary Heart Disease and TAVI Planning. Fortschr Röntgenstr 2023; 195: 293 - 296., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (Thieme. All rights reserved.)

Background: Maladaptive remodelling mechanisms occur in patients with repaired tetralogy of Fallot (rToF) resulting in a cycle of metabolic and structural changes. Biventricular shape analysis may indicate mechanisms associated with adverse events independent of pulmonary regurgitant volume index (PRVI). We aimed to determine novel remodelling patterns associated with adverse events in patients with rToF using shape and function analysis., Methods: Biventricular shape and function were studied in 192 patients with rToF (median time from TOF repair to baseline evaluation 13.5 years). Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to identify shape differences between patients with and without adverse events. Adverse events included death, arrhythmias, and cardiac arrest with median follow-up of 10 years., Results: LDA and PCA showed that shape characteristics pertaining to adverse events included a more circular left ventricle (LV) (decreased eccentricity), dilated (increased sphericity) LV base, increased right ventricular (RV) apical sphericity, and decreased RV basal sphericity. Multivariate LDA showed that the optimal discriminative model included only RV apical ejection fraction and one PCA mode associated with a more circular and dilated LV base (AUC = 0.77). PRVI did not add value, and shape changes associated with increased PRVI were not predictive of adverse outcomes., Conclusion: Pathological remodelling patterns in patients with rToF are significantly associated with adverse events, independent of PRVI. Mechanisms related to incident events include LV basal dilation with a reduced RV apical ejection fraction., (© 2022. The Author(s).)