We report the management of a patient with chronic idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura and severe aortic valvular disease. Preoperative intravenous high-dose gamma-globulin administration was employed, and aortic valve replacement combined with splenectomy were performed during the same operation. The platelet count at admission was 34,000/mm3 and increased to 146,000/mm3 after the gamma-globulin therapy. Platelet transfusion at the end of the cardiopulmonary bypass was considered no longer necessary in the postoperative period, because the platelet count increased quickly after the procedure. The postoperative course was uneventful. We believe that open heart surgery and splenectomy can successfully be performed simultaneously in a patient with chronic idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura treated with high-dose gamma-globulin therapy.

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The removal of serum myoglobin with extracorporeal circulation using a column filled with methylmethacrylate-divinylbenzene (MMA-DVB) was studied in experimentally induced myonephropathic metabolic syndrome in the dog. All animals showed marked edema in the hind limbs and degeneration or necrosis of the adductor muscle 5 hours after the reestablishment of arterial flow. The serum levels of myoglobin, creatinine phosphokinase, glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase and aldolase increased linearly after the reperfusion of blood in the group of animals which received no extracorporeal circulation (group 1). Sediments of numerous myoglobin casts in the renal tubules and immunoreactive myoglobin in the renal epithelium of almost all the tubules were seen in 4 out of 5 cases. In the group of animals reperfused with extracorporeal circulation using the MMA-DVB column, serum myoglobin was adsorbed selectively by the column and showed a significantly lower value at 0.5, 1, 2 and 3 hours than that of the group 1 animals. Concomitantly, the immunoreactive myoglobin was absent or scant in the renal epithelium of the proximal convoluted tubule. The present study therefore indicates that extracorporeal circulation using the MMA-DVB column is useful for the removal of serum myoglobin from experimentally induced myonephropathic metabolic syndrome.

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