Contents

#### **Preface XI**


Ihsan Alloubi

#### **X** Contents

#### **Section 2 Cardiac Surgery 219**


Preface

tions.

The field of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery continues to evolve at a pace in which almost by definition any idea that is published is instantly out-of-date. Ideas are in con‐ stant evolution and new, exciting, and innovative technologies are often featured not only in mainstream Journals, but the lay-press media as well. While such progress is exciting– particularly for those at the forefront of such developments–unfortunately, it often takes years for some of these technologies to mature to the point in which they are safely and readily available to our patients. Many of these developments sometimes become restrict‐ ed to specialized centers and occasionally only available to those patients with access to referrals and resources. Furthermore, it is also unclear the extent in which such advances may actually benefit patients as some of the most significant, exciting, and expensive therapies are indicated for potentially only a small number of patients. Nevertheless, there are still numerous problems–beyond some of the basics - in which the management con‐ tinues to challenge all of those who are involved in the care of the cardiothoracic patient. As more and more of these problems require the management of multi-disciplinary Teams, the ability to speak a common language and understand complex problems be‐ comes even more important. Furthermore, as patients–for many reasons–present in vari‐ ous stages of their diseases, some very early and some very late–combined with the challenges of dealing with more complex co-morbidities, unusual problems are becoming

more common and common problems are presenting in more unusual ways.

The goal of Principles and Practice of Cardiothoracic Surgery is not to be an all encom‐ passing text of an endless field, but rather to highlight some of the challenges that might be facing the Team that is often faced with dealing with the wide-spectrum of problems that can, and often are, encountered at centers throughout the world on a daily basis. Ob‐ viously topics like percutaneous valves, long-term ventricular assist devices, and thoracic organ transplantation continue to fascinate those who follow our field–but unfortunately, for many reasons, these topics, not only are constantly changing, but are rarely available outside of major medical centers and have limited availability to patients. Entire textbooks have been dedicated to these individual topics. As such, they can be of limited practical interest to the practicing surgeon who is not already at a center that performs these proce‐ dures or, conversely, who is still in training or trying to figure out how to get involved with a field that might be moving too quickly–and potentially in too many different direc‐

This text is divided into 3 sections – Thoracic Surgery, Cardiac Surgery, and Great-vessel Surgery – with not only state of the art discussions of the current literature on some of the

