Acta Cardiologica Sinica

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: Malnutrition is common in patients with advanced heart failure (HF), and both conditions have a poor prognosis. OBJECTIVES: We sought to determine the predictive value of nutritional status using the prognostic nutritional index (PNI) for long-term mortality in patients with advanced HF. METHODS: This is a retrospective observational study. The optimal PNI cut-off value for predicting all-cause mortality was determined to be 50...

BACKGROUND: Hereditary transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM) is a progressive and fatal disease. A97S (p.Ala117Ser) is the most common transthyretin genetic mutation in Taiwan. Tafamidis is a transthyretin stabilizer, and it has been shown to improve outcomes. However, its effect on A97S ATTR-CM subtypes remains unknown. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of tafamidis in patients with hereditary A97S ATTR-CM after 6 months of treatment...

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BACKGROUND: Heart failure is associated with shifts in substrate preferences and energy insufficiency. Although cardiac metabolism has been explored at the organ level, the metabolic changes at the individual cell level remain unclear. This study employed single-cell ribonucleic acid (RNA) sequencing to investigate the cell-type-specific characteristics of gene expression related to fatty acid metabolism. METHODS: Single-cell RNA sequencing data from fetal hearts were processed to analyze gene expression patterns related to fatty acid metabolism...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: Coronary slow flow phenomenon (CSFP) is characterized by delay in the progression of contrast material in the coronary tree that is not accompanied by significant coronary artery narrowing. Pathophysiologic pathways underpinning CSFP still remain poorly understood. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the relationship between serum galectin-3 (GAL-3) and growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15) levels with CSFP. METHODS: Fifty CSFP patients and 40 subjects with normal coronary arteries were included in this retrospective study...

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Cardiac amyloidosis is one form of systemic amyloidosis caused by abnormal amyloid fibrils deposited in the extracellular space of the myocardium causing heart failure because of restrictive cardiomyopathy and conduction disturbances. The incidence and prevalence of cardiac amyloidosis are higher than previously noted, particularly among special populations. The most common forms of cardiac amyloidosis are light chain and transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy. Even though more than 70% of patients with systemic amyloidosis have cardiac amyloidosis, the diagnosis is often delayed, suggesting significant gaps in the knowledge of cardiac amyloidosis and a lack of multidisciplinary teamwork in our daily practice...

BACKGROUND: The Meta-Analysis Global Group in Chronic Heart Failure (MAGGIC) is a scoring system that is easy to use in outpatient clinics or at the bedside, and was developed to predict the survival of heart failure patients after hospitalization. OBJECTIVES: This study aims to evaluate the relationship between the MAGGIC score and cardiorenal syndrome (CRS) in patients with acute decompensated heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). METHODS: This retrospective, single-center study, included 706 patients with New York Heart Association II-IV who were hospitalized and discharged for acute decompensated heart failure between 2016 and 2021...

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No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: In addition to cardiotoxicity, ocular toxicity induced by chemotherapeutic agents is not uncommon. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore the association between ocular adverse events and major adverse cardiovascular events (composite endpoint) caused by chemotherapy, and whether specific ocular events could be potential predictors of some specific components of the composite endpoint. METHODS: A total of 5378 newly diagnosed patients (age > 18 y/o) with any malignancy or metastatic solid tumors who received chemotherapy from January 1997 to December 2010 were enrolled from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database...

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: We aimed to assess the incidence of recurrent cardiovascular (CV) events after the first myocardial infarction (MI), ischemic stroke (IS), or intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) and to estimate acute and follow-up medical costs. METHODS: Using Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database, we identified patients with their first MI, IS, or ICH between 2011 and 2017. The cumulative incidence rates of second CV events (including events of the same type [recurrent] or of the other two types) were estimated...

BACKGROUND: There are limited reports on the treatment of complex calcified lesions using rotational atherectomy (RA) in octogenarians, particularly in high-risk patients. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate procedural and clinical outcomes of RA in octogenarians. METHODS: Consecutive RA patients from 2010 to 2018 were selected from our catheterization laboratory database, stratified into two groups (≥ or < 80 years old), and analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 411 patients (269 males and 142 females) with a mean age of 73...

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BACKGROUND: Left bundle branch area pacing (LBBAP) has the advantages of narrow QRS duration, rapid peak left ventricular (LV) activation, and LV dyssynchrony correction with a low, stable pacing output. Here we report our experience with patients undergoing LBBAP with a left bundle branch block (LBBB) for clinically indicated pacemaker or cardiac resynchronization therapy implantation. We compared the initial follow-up data of these patients and patients undergoing conventional right ventricular pacing (RVP)...