The normal and abnormal owl monkey (Aotus sp.) heart: looking at cardiomyopathy changes with echocardiography and electrocardiography
Conclusions Aged Aotus had increased left ventricular posterior wall thickness over young animals. Left ventricular diameter and ejection fraction appeared to be the best identifying measurements for cardiomyopathy. There were no differences in the ECG. (Source: Journal of Medical Primatology)...
POSTED 02/07/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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The relationship between disease-related characteristics and conduction disturbances in ankylosing spondylitis.
Conclusion: Intraventricular CD is highly prevalent in AS, particularly in patients with long-standing disease. Further research is needed to determine whether intraventricular CD contribute to the increased CV risk and long-term CV mortality in AS.
PMID: 20132069 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Scandinavian Journal of Rheumatology)...
POSTED 02/07/2010 at 07:08 AM --
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Eosinophilic myocarditis mimicking acute coronary syndrome secondary to idiopathic hypereosinophilic syndrome: a case report
Conclusion:
Eosinophilic myocarditis can present like an acute myocardial infarction and should be considered in the differential diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome in patients with a history of allergy, asthma or acute reduction of the left ventricular function with or without peripheral eosinophilia. (Source: BioMed Central)...
POSTED 02/05/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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[Anesthesia in patients with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.]
Authors: Zenker J, Hagenah U, Rossaint R
Eating disorders are typical diseases of adolescence and early adulthood. About 1-3% of female juveniles suffer from anorexia nervosa (AN) or bulimia nervosa (BN). Today AN is still the psychiatric disease with the highest mortality rate. The peri-operative mortality rate of patients suffering from AN is in the range up to 15%. The beginning of AN is a lingering process and the majority of patients show increasingly restrictive eating habits ending in cachexia. Patients are obsessed by the predominant idea of being obese in spite of having a significant underweight. Patients suffering from bulimia break the strict regimen by eating enormous amounts of high calorie food. Such eating attacks are followed by weight reducing measures, mostly vomitin......
POSTED 02/05/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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Preventable Hospitalization Among Nursing Home Residents: Varying Views Between Medical Directors and Directors of Nursing Regarding Determinants
Conclusions: Our analysis showed that communication and consensus are important factors in the hospital transfer decision and that the discord in perceptions among MDs and DONs may complicate interventions to reduce preventable hospitalization. (Source: Journal of Aging and Health)...
POSTED 02/04/2010 at 06:27 PM --
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Applicability of Body Surface Potential Map in Computerized Optimization of Biventricular Pacing.
Authors: Miri R, Graf IM, Bayarri JV, Dössel O
Biventricular pacing (BVP) could be improved by identifying the patient-specific optimal electrode positions. Body surface potential map (BSPM) is a non-invasive technique for obtaining the electrophysiology and pathology of a patient. The study proposes the use of BSPM as input for an automated non-invasive strategy based on a personalized computer model of the heart, to identify the patient pathology and specific optimal treatment with BVP devices. The anatomy of a patient suffering from left bundle branch block and myocardial infarction is extracted from a series of MR data sets. The clinical measurements of BSPM are used to parameterize the computer model of the heart to represent the individual pathology. Cardiac electrophysiolog......
POSTED 02/04/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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Electrocardiography-guided and retrospective analysis of central venous catheter placement in the dog
Conclusions and clinical relevance The odds of correctly placing a central venous catheter by ECG-guidance were the same as the external landmark technique. The ECG-guided technique may be useful in situations where external landmarks are not readily available. (Source: Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia)...
POSTED 02/04/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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Mapping cardiac pacemaker circuits: methodological puzzles of the sinoatrial node optical mapping.
Authors: Efimov IR, Fedorov VV, Joung B, Lin SF
Abstract: Historically, milestones in science are usually associated with methodological breakthroughs. Likewise, the advent of electrocardiography, microelectrode recordings and more recently optical mapping have ushered in new periods of significance of advancement in elucidating basic mechanisms in cardiac electrophysiology. As with any novel technique, however, data interpretation is challenging and should be approached with caution, as it cannot be simply extrapolated from previously used methodologies and with experience and time eventually becomes validated. A good example of this is the use of optical mapping in the sinoatrial node (SAN): when microelectrode and optical recordings are obtained from the same site in myocardium, sig......
POSTED 02/04/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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Appearance of a double aortic arch in DiGeorge syndrome on ECG-gated 64 detector row computed tomography
(Source: Heart)...
POSTED 02/04/2010 at 09:44 AM --
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Are Electrocardiographic Changes in Patients with Acute Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Associated with Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy?
Cardiology 2010;115:182183 (DOI:10.1159/000280396) (Source: Karger Publishers)...
POSTED 02/03/2010 at 05:00 PM --
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Stand up and be counted: ECG-based test for long-QT syndrome proposed
Easily added to any other tests performed, a positive finding suggests the patient is susceptible to potentially fatal ventricular arrhythmias, according to researchers.
For complete story visit theheart.org. (Source: theHeart.org)...
POSTED 02/03/2010 at 04:15 PM --
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Validation of a new contrast material protocol adapted to body surface area for optimized low-dose CT coronary angiography with prospective ECG-triggering
Abstract In patients with large total blood volume contrast material (CM) dilution decreases coronary attenuation in CT coronary angiography
(CTCA). As increased blood volume is well paralleled by body surface area (BSA) we assessed a BSA-adapted CM protocol to compensate
for dilution effects. Low-dose CTCA with prospective ECG-triggering was performed in 80 patients with a BSA-adapted CM bolus
ranging 40–105 ml and injection rate ranging 3.5–5.0 ml/s for a BSA of <1.70 to ≥2.5 m2. Eighty control patients matched for BSA who had previously undergone routine CTCA with a fixed CM protocol of 80 ml at 5 ml/s
served as reference group. The average vessel attenuation from the proximal right (RCA) and the left main coronary artery
(LMA) was asses......
POSTED 02/03/2010 at 11:58 AM --
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Atrial activity estimation from atrial fibrillation ECGs by blind source extraction based on a conditional maximum likelihood approach
Abstract This work presents a spatial filtering method for the estimation of atrial fibrillation activity in the cutaneous electrocardiogram.
A linear extraction filter is obtained by maximising the extractor output power on the significant spectral support of the
signal of interest. An iterative procedure based on a quasi-maximum likelihood estimator is proposed to jointly estimate the
significant spectral support and the extraction filter. Compared with a previously proposed spatio-temporal blind source separation
method, our approach yields an improved atrial activity signal estimate as quantified by a higher spectral concentration of
the extractor output. The proposed methodology can readily be adapted to signal extraction problems in other application domains.
Conte......
POSTED 02/03/2010 at 12:55 AM --
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Distinct Pharmacokinetic Profile and Safety of a Fixed-Dose Tablet of Sumatriptan and Naproxen Sodium for the Acute Treatment of Migraine
Conclusion.[mdash] The combination tablet of sumatriptan/naproxen sodium has unique pharmacokinetic properties. The rapid absorption of sumatriptan with the delayed-release properties of naproxen sodium from sumatriptan/naproxen sodium might contribute to its therapeutic advantage over monotherapy with either component. No clinically meaningful effects of food, administration during a migraine attack, or administration of a second tablet (2 hours after initial dose) on the pharmacokinetics or safety of sumatriptan/naproxen sodium were observed. (Source: Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain)...
POSTED 02/02/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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The Cardiologic Explorer: A High-End Cardiogoniometry System
Do you operate a three dimensional ECG, which shows you the spatial structures of the electric potentials of the heart in depolarization and repolarization stages?
The Cardiologic Explorer offers you this functionality, which is called cardiogoniometry.
By simply placing five electrodes you can make the spread of the electric potentials in the heart visible and receive information about homogeneity and myocardial mass. As such it is very easy to get an early diagnosis of ischemia.
Furthermore the Cardiologic Explorer enables fast and reliable diagnosis of:
NSTEMI
STEMI
LVH
Rec... (Source: Hospital Management)...
POSTED 02/02/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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Origin of the Electrocardiographic U Wave: Effects of M Cells and Dynamic Gap Junction Coupling.
Authors: Hopenfeld B, Ashikaga H
The electrophysiological basis underlying the genesis of the U wave remains uncertain. Previous U wave modeling studies have generally been restricted to 1-D or 2-D geometries, and it is not clear whether the U waves generated by these models would match clinically observed U wave body surface potential distributions (BSPDs). We investigated the role of M cells and transmural dispersion of repolarization (TDR) in a 2-D, fully ionic heart tissue slice model and a realistic 3-D heart/torso model. In the 2-D model, while a U wave was present in the ECG with dynamic gap junction conductivity, the ECG with static gap junctions did not exhibit a U wave. In the 3-D model, TDR was necessary to account for the clinically observed potential minimum in the right s......
POSTED 02/02/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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Lack of Functional Pregnancy-Associated Plasma Protein-A (PAPPA) Compromises Mouse Ovarian Steroidogenesis and Female Fertility.
Authors: Nyegaard M, Overgaard MT, Su YQ, Hamilton AE, Kwintkiewicz J, Hsieh M, Nayak NR, Conti M, Conover CA, Giudice LC
The insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system plays an important role in regulating ovarian follicular development and steroidogenesis. IGF binding proteins (IGFBP) mostly inhibit IGF actions, and IGFBP proteolysis is a major mechanism for regulating IGF bioavailability. Pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A (PAPPA) is a secreted metalloprotease responsible for cleavage of IGFBP4 in the ovary. The aim of this study was to investigate whether PAPPA plays a role in regulating ovarian functions and female fertility, by comparing the reproductive phenotype of wild type (WT) mice with mice heterozygous or homozygous for a targeted Pappa gene deletion (HET and PAPP-A KO mic......
POSTED 02/02/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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Prehospital emergency physician activation of interventional cardiology team reduces door-to-balloon time in ST-elevation myocardial infarction.
CONCLUSIONS: Catheterization laboratory activation by a prehospital emergency physician markedly reduces DTBT in STEMI patients.
PMID: 20131111 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Swiss Medical Weekly)...
POSTED 02/02/2010 at 06:00 PM --
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Constitutively active phosphatase inhibitor-1 improves cardiac contractility in young mice but is deleterious after catecholaminergic stress and with aging
In conclusion, conditional expression of I-1c or I-1S67A enhanced steady-state phosphorylation of 2 key Ca2+-regulating sarcoplasmic reticulum enzymes. This was associated with increased contractile function in young animals but also with arrhythmias and cardiomyopathy after adrenergic stress and with aging. These data should be considered in the development of novel therapies for heart failure. (Source: Journal of Clinical Investigation)...
POSTED 02/02/2010 at 10:14 AM --
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A novel online method to monitor autonomic nervous activity based on arterial wall impedance and heart rate variability
Abstract This paper proposes a new method of evaluating autonomic nervous activity using the mechanical impedance of arterial walls
and heart rate variability. The cardiovascular system is indispensable to life maintenance functions, and homeostasis is maintained
by the autonomic nervous system. Accordingly, it is very important to be able to make diagnosis based on autonomic nervous
activity within the body’s circulation. The proposed method was evaluated in surgical operations; the mechanical impedance
of the arterial wall was estimated from arterial blood pressure and a photoplethysmogram, and heart rate variability was estimated
using electrocardiogram R–R interval spectral analysis. In this paper, we monitored autonomic nervous system activity using
the proposed s......
POSTED 02/02/2010 at 01:00 AM --
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