Clinical Aspects of Operable Heart Disease

Abstract

This text attempts to survey the field of cardiovascular surgery, summarizing the most significant developments of the past two decades. A correlation between clinical features and operative findings is well presented. Throughout the text the pathologic physiology is stressed in each case to corroborate the findings of diagnosis, natural history, and therapy. Among the 24 chapters, 20 are devoted to specific lesions, grouping aortic valvular lesions with left ventricular outflow tract abnormalities. The remaining four chapters are concerned with methods of diagnosis, extracorporeal circulation, preoperative and postoperative care, and heart transplantation. Because of the continuous expansion of the field of cardiovascular surgery, the text may be destined for rather early obsolescence as new techniques appear. For example, the treatment for persistent truncus arteriosus is discussed as being questionably surgical, whereas during the past year the operative correction of this anomaly has been successfully accomplished in a growing number of cases.