This week started with patient service round in cardiology. We saw a patient with spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP), and there were plenty of fluid in patient's abdominal cavity, which resulted in elevated diaphragm and reduced ejection fraction (~15%, normal EF: 55% to 70%). I was really shocked when I saw the elevated diaphragm in CT image, and hopefully this patient will get well soon.
I also went to echo teaching section with fellow and residency in cardiology this week for interpreting echo images. There was an interesting case that using micro-bubble to visualize the fluid flow in the heart. This test is trying to exam if there is any leakage between right and left heart chamber. If the heart is normal, the micro-bubble should be visible only in the right atrium and ventricle. The echo image we read that day showed normal.
As for the research part, I started to involve in an active project that investigating the change of circumferential strain in the descending aorta before and after prosthetic graft implantation in the ascending aorta. We were also looking for the correlation between circumferential strain and cardiovascular characteristic, including heart function, ascending and descending aortic diameter, and descending aortic thickness. The image source came from echo and CT images. Interestingly, we found there is a significant correlation between circumferential strain and descending aortic thickness, and further investigation is needed to elucidate the clinical meaning.
It is shocking to see some rare cases and diseases that we don't expect. I hope they get better too. I found those cases always helped me to not de-humanize the patients....sometimes I would forget that these surgeries and procedures were life and death for some people.
ReplyDeleteI hope you get to follow up on that patient. It also seems like the research you are working on is really interesting. =)