Background: The risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) in different valve dysfunction has been unclear. Methods: We reviewed patients, who underwent valve heart surgery and coronary angiography from 2008 to 2021, at our center. Results: A total of 7,932 patients were included in the present study, and 1,332 (16.8%) had CAD. The mean age of the study cohort was 60.5±7.9 years, and 4,206 (53.0%) were male. CAD was 21.4% in aortic disease, 16.2% in mitral valve disease, 11.8% in isolated tricuspid valve disease, and 13.0% in combined aortic and mitral valve disease. Patients with aortic stenosis were older than those with regurgitation (63.6±7.4 years vs. 59.5±8.2 years, P < 0.001), and the CAD risks also were higher (28.0% vs. 19.2%, P < 0.001). The age difference was minimal (60.6±8.2 years vs. 59.5±6.7 years, P = 0.002) between patients with mitral valve regurgitation and stenosis, but the risks of CAD were twice high in regurgitation (20.2% vs. 10.5%, P < 0.001). When the type of valve impairment was not considered, non-rheumatic etiology, advanced age, male sex, hypertension, and diabetes were independent predictors of CAD. Conclusion: In patients undergoing valve surgery, the prevalence of CAD was influenced by conventional risk factors. Importantly, CAD also was associated with the type and etiology of valve diseases.

Background: The clinical characteristics and survival outcomes of patients who underwent concomitant coronary artery bypass grafting during septal myectomy have not been well studied. Methods and Results: We reviewed patients who underwent both septal myectomy and coronary artery bypass grafting from 2009 to 2020. Causes of concomitant grafting and their impact on survival were analyzed. The median follow‐up period was 5.1 years. A total of 320 patients underwent both grafting and myectomy. Of these, 69.7% and 28.1% underwent grafting attributed to atherosclerotic coronary artery disease and myocardial bridging, respectively. Patients who underwent grafting for coronary artery disease tended to be older, had a longer bypass time, and required more grafts compared with patients undergoing procedures because of myocardial bridging (all P <0.05). Postoperatively, the left ventricular outflow gradient significantly decreased from 85.4 mm Hg to 12.8 mm Hg ( P <0.001) without perioperative death. The cumulative survival rates were 96.2% and 97.6% at 5 years in the coronary artery disease and myocardial bridging groups, respectively, and they were comparable to that of general myectomy cohort (hazard ratio [HR], 1.06 [95% CI, 0.47–2.36], P =0.895 and HR 0.75 [95% CI, 0.23–2.46], P =0.636, respectively). Sudden death accounted for 45.5% (5 of 11) of postoperative mortality. Analysis of composite end point events showed decreased morbidity with at least one arterial graft in the overall cohort (HR, 0.47 [95% CI, 0.23–0.94], P =0.034). Conclusions: Concomitant grafting in septal myectomy was found to be a safe procedure. Patients who underwent such surgery experienced favorable postoperative outcomes comparable to those who underwent septal myectomy alone, with a 5‐year survival rate of >95% and improved functional class of >90%.

Aortic stenosis (AS) is the most prevalent valvular heart disease, potentially leading to severe complications such as heart failure, stroke, and sudden death if left untreated. Many patients remain undiagnosed due to the absence of prominent symptoms. Given the serious consequences of AS and the prevalence of undiagnosed asymptomatic patients, there is an urgent need for large-scale screening to enhance early detection and improve patient prognosis. In this work, we propose PASS, a PPG-based Aortic Stenosis Screening System designed for cost-effective, non-invasive, and scalable AS detection. Unlike previous studies that relied on small-scale cohorts or indirect cardiac signals, PASS leverages fingertip PPG to capture the hemodynamic impact of AS in a more accessible manner. To implement PASS, we develop a customized neural network feature extractor capable of performing segmentation, feature extraction, and fusion to capture subtle AS features within the PPG signals. Furthermore, we enhance the classification robustness of PASS by introducing a metric learning-based classifier designed to address the challenge of significant intra-class variation. We evaluate PASS on a real-world clinical dataset comprising 325 subjects, including 158 AS patients confirmed by echocardiography. Our system achieves 91.92% sensitivity and 92.75% specificity, demonstrating strong potential for population-level AS screening using consumer-grade devices.

Background: Traditional sutures often fail to meet the complex demands of wound closure across diverse anatomical environments. This study introduces a novel drug-eluting, multiscene absorbable biological suture derived from decellularized fish swim bladder, designed to address limitations in mechanical performance, pH resistance, and foreign body reactions. Methods: Swim bladders were decellularized, microdissected into 0.3-mm strips, and functionalized with rapamycin (RAPA) or necrostatin-1 (NEC-1) via hyaluronic acid/polyvinyl alcohol coatings. Sutures were evaluated for cytotoxicity [human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) assays], mechanical properties (tensile/acid/alkali resistance), and efficacy in rat models of venous/arterial, intestinal, gastric, and abdominal wall closures ( n = 3/group). Histological (hematoxylin and eosin, immunofluorescence) and scanning electron microscopy analyses were performed. Results: The NEC-1 sutures demonstrated superior tensile strength (hydrated: 2.1 ± 0.3 N vs. RAPA: 1.8 ± 0.2 N, CTL: 1.5 ± 0.2 N; P <0.05) and maintained structural integrity in both acidic (pH 1.0) and alkaline (pH 8.0) environments for 7 days. In vitro , drug-loaded sutures significantly inhibited HUVEC proliferation by 40% ( P = 0.0096) without inducing apoptosis. In vivo evaluations across venous, arterial, intestinal, gastric, and abdominal wall closures revealed that NEC-1 sutures markedly reduced foreign body reactions, exhibiting the smallest capsule area (0.12 ± 0.03 mm ² vs. CTL: 0.35 ± 0.05 mm ² ; P <0.0001) and 58% fewer CD68 + macrophages compared to controls ( P = 0.0015). All suture types achieved successful leak-free wound closures, with NEC-1 showing particularly strong suppression of neovascularization (CD31 + vessels: 12 ± 3 vs. CTL: 28 ± 5; P = 0.0001). The RAPA sutures also showed significant improvements over controls but were intermediate in performance between NEC-1 and uncoated CTL sutures. Mechanical testing confirmed that both drug-loaded variants (RAPA and NEC-1) maintained higher strength than CTL sutures under both dry and hydrated conditions, while histological analyses demonstrated progressive reductions in inflammatory markers (CD45 +, PCNA +, cleaved caspase 3 + cells) with drug-functionalized sutures. Conclusion: Swim bladder-derived sutures demonstrate universal applicability, staged drug release, and significant reductions in inflammatory responses, offering a promising alternative for multitissue surgical repairs. Graphic The process of making suture and summarizing the cross-tissue analysis protocol. A: Surgical extraction and processing workflow. ① Tissue harvest from fish. ② The swim bladder undergoes decellularization treatment. ③ Microdissection into standardized strips. ④ The swim bladder is processed to create a drug-carrying, multiscene, absorbable biological suture. B: Fish swim bladder suture is used to stitch various organs. (i) Inferior vena cava and infrarenal abdominal aorta. (ii) Small intestine. (iii) Stomach. (iv) Abdominal wall.