heart

BACKGROUND: Patients with psychotic disorders report to apply more maladaptive and less adaptive emotion-regulation (ER) strategies compared to healthy controls. However, few studies have used experimental designs to investigate the success in ER and the results of those at hand are equivocal. AIM: This study investigated whether patients with delusions show problems in downregulating negative affect via cognitive ER-strategies. METHOD: Patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and acute delusions (n = 78) and healthy controls (n = 41) took part in an ER-experiment, in which they were instructed to downregulate anxiety and sadness via three ER-strategies (reappraisal, distraction, acceptance) or not to regulate their emotions (control-condition)...

BACKGROUND: The study intended to determine the presence of lower limb arterial calcification (LLAC) in lower extremity color Doppler ultrasonography (CDUS) before primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and its relation with cardiovascular events (CVE) during knee arthroplasty and the postoperative period, as well as to investigate its effect on surgical risk estimation. METHODS: We designed this study as a retrospective cohort study. The study comprised 467 patients who met the inclusion criteria and had surgery for a primary gonarthrosis diagnosis between January 2005 and December 2015 were included...

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have reported that chemotherapy results in substantial long-term risk of heart failure. Exercise ameliorates exercise responses and exercise tolerance in patients receiving chemotherapy. The cardioprotective effect of real-time exercise in breast cancer is still unclear. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of real-time moderate-to-high-intensity exercise training in women with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy and to follow up on parameters of cardiac function and exercise capacity at different times...

Parechovirus-A1 (PeV-A1) often causes mild respiratory or gastrointestinal disease. Herein we report a case of acute heart failure due to dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) exacerbated by acute PeV-A1 infection in a 10-month-old infant. He presented to our hospital with acute respiratory distress and compensated shock. Echocardiogram showed a dilated left ventricle and severe mitral regurgitation, consistent with DCM. PeV-A1 infection was confirmed by 1) positive PCR for PeV-A in multiple anatomical sites including blood, stool, and throat swab samples, 2) genetic sequence of viral protein, and 3) an increase in paired serum PeV-A1-specific neutralizing antibody titers...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

The selectivity of a drug toward various isoforms of the target protein family is important in terms of toxicology. Typically, drug or candidate selectivity is assessed by in vitro assays, but in vivo investigations are currently lacking. Positron emission tomography (PET) allows the non-invasive determination of the in vivo distribution of a radiolabeled drug, which can provide in vivo data regarding drug selectivity. Since the discovery of propranolol, a non-selective β-blocker inhibiting both β1 - and β2 -adrenoreceptors (β-ARs), various selective β1 -blockers, including bisoprolol, have been developed to overcome disadvantages associated with β2 -AR inhibition...

The advent of newly available medical therapies for HFrEF has resulted in many potential therapeutic combinations, increasing treatment complexity. Publication of expert consensus guidelines and initiative aimed to improve treatment implementation have emphasized sequential, stepwise initiation and titration of medical therapy, which is labour intensive. Data taken from heart failure registries shows suboptimal use of medications, prolonged titration time and consequently little change in dose intensity, all of which, indicate therapeutic inertia...

Cation and protons perform a substantial role in all the organism and its homeostasis within the cells are maintained by the cation-proton antiporters (CPAs). CPA is the huge family of the membrane transporter protein throughout the plant and animal kingdom including microorganism. In human, any malfunctioning of these proteins may lead to severe diseases like hypertension, heart diseases etc and CPAs are recently proposed to be responsible for the virulent property of various pathogens including Vibrio cholerae, Yersinia pestis etc...

OBJECTIVE: To test feasibility of tele-clinic visits using parentally-acquired vital signs and focused echocardiographic (echo) images in patients with Marfan syndrome. STUDY DESIGN: We included patients with MFS 5-19 years old followed in our clinic. We excluded patients with MFS and history of prior aortic root (AoR) surgery, cardiomyopathy, arrhythmia, or AoR≥4.5 cm. We trained parents in-person to acquire focused echo images on their children using a hand-held device as well as how to use a stadiometer, scale, blood pressure (BP) machine, and a digital stethoscope...

INTRODUCTION: Birth defects are a leading cause of infant death. Pregnant women spend a large amount of time indoors, and little research from population-based studies has investigated the association between indoor air pollution and birth defects. We aimed to examine whether using coal, biomass, or electromagnetic stoves for cooking is associated with risk of birth defects compared to using gas stoves. METHODS: A birth cohort study was conducted from 2010-2012 in Lanzhou, China...

BACKGROUND: Among patients with severe aortic stenosis (AS), there are limited data on aortic valve replacement (AVR), reasons for non-receipt and mortality by race. METHODS: Utilizing the Duke Echocardiography Laboratory Database, we analyzed data from 110,711 patients who underwent echocardiography at Duke University Medical Center between 1999-2013. We identified 1,111 patients with severe AS who met ≥1 of 3 criteria for AVR: ejection fraction ≤50%, diagnosis of heart failure, or need for coronary artery bypass surgery...

Early diagnosis of Kawasaki (KD) disease is critical to promptly initiate treatment and avoid cardiac complications. All children have fever accompanied by clinical signs with 4 of the 5 classific criteria for complete KD being mucocutaneous, thus creating an important role for dermatologists. Moreover, dermatologists must be familiar with other dermatological findings, not included in the American Heart Association classification criteria, which can support the diagnosis particularly in incomplete forms of the disease...

AIMS: In peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM), electrocardiography (ECG) and its relationship to echocardiography have not yet been investigated in large multi-centre and multi-ethnic studies. We aimed to identify ECG abnormalities associated with PPCM, including regional and ethnic differences, and their correlation with echocardiographic features. METHODS AND RESULTS: We studied 411 patients from the EURObservational PPCM registry. Baseline demographic, clinical, and echocardiographic data were collected...

Emotions have long been discussed in conjunction with the autonomic nervous system. Most research on emotion-autonomic linkages does not consider sex differences or an evident underlying mechanism for sex differences: menstrual cycle phase. Further, most research is limited to cross-sectional and laboratory studies. The degree to which emotion-autonomic associations manifest in everyday life may be different and may vary by sex and, for women, by menstrual cycle phase. This study employs the ambulatory monitoring of cardiovascular measures (e...

BACKGROUND: Matrix fentanyl patches have not been investigated in horses and may represent an effective means of providing analgesia over an extended time period without venous catheterisation. OBJECTIVES: To describe the pharmacokinetics of a matrix transdermal fentanyl patch in horses. Study design Randomised experiment, Latin-square design. METHODS: Six adult horses were given each of three treatments with a 96-hour washout. For each treatment, two 100 μg/hr matrix fentanyl patches were applied to the inguinal region (TXA), metacarpus (TXM), or ventral tail base (TXT) for 72 hours...

INTRODUCTION: Low resting heart rate (RHR) increases augmentation pressure (AP) and central pulse pressure (central PP) and decreases peripheral pressure wave amplification. Given that the contribution of AP to central PP increases with age we hypothesized that the influence of RHR on AP, central PP and peripheral amplification varies with age. AIM: To evaluate the interaction between age and RHR on the forward and backward components of central PP. METHODS: A cohort of 1249 ambulatory hypertensive patients with good quality radial wave recordings was stratified into age groups and quartiles of RHR (< 61, 61-68, 69-76 and > 76 bpm)...

Lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) due to bacterial pneumonia are common among hospitalized patients and are frequently treated with antibiotics. Viral illnesses and exacerbations of heart failure or COPD may present with symptoms mimicking a LRTI, resulting in unnecessary antibiotic utilization. Procalcitonin testing may be useful in these clinical scenarios. We attempted to assess the utility of procalcitonin testing versus not testing, and positive versus negative results among hospitalized patients with suspected LRTI...

Using postmortem MRI, we studied the features of the development of internal cadaveric hypostasis in dead newborns. Postmortem radiological and pathoanatomical examination of 62 bodies of newborns and infants who died at the age of 1.5 h to 49 days was carried out. After the death was ascertained, prior to MRI, the bodies were stored in a refrigerator at 4°C in the supine position. Depending on the duration of the postmortem period (2-72 h), all observations were divided into eight groups. Prior to autopsy, an MRI scan was performed in T1 and T2 standard modes, followed by analysis of the presence and severity of the gradient line of the intensity of the MR signal in the liver and lung tissue in the ventral (overlying) and dorsal (underlying) areas, as well as the presence of a gradient of the intensity of the blood signal in the heart cavity and in the aortic lumen...

The mechanisms underlying cardioprotective activity of compound ALM-802 were studied in experiments on rats with chronic post-infarction heart failure. Real-time PCR showed that compound ALM-802 (daily intraperitoneal injections in a dose of 2 mg/kg for 28 days starting from day 91 after myocardial infarction modeling) restored the expression of genes encoding β1- (p=0.00001) and β2-adrenoreceptors (p=0.01) and type 2 ryanodine receptors (p=0.008) in the myocardium that was reduced in control animals. These effects can serve as the basis for the ability of the compound to reduce the intensity of remodeling and increase the inotropic function of the left heart ventricle shown earlier in this model...

Uncoupling of respiration and ATP production by myocardial mitochondria was observed in rats with chronic isoproterenol intoxication (L-isoproterenol subcutaneously, 1 mg/kg, for 10 days) in comparison with controls (injected with the solvent). Inhibitors of NHE-1 zoniporide (1 mg/kg intraperitoneally, 13 days) and BMA-1321 compound (0.92 mg/kg intraperitoneally, 13 days) improved the mitochondrial function in rats with isoproterenol-induced cardiac failure: respiratory control coefficients increased, more so for the respiratory chain complex II, the main source of ROS in heart failure...