heart

BACKGROUND: The imaging photoplethysmography (iPPG) method is a non-invasive, non-contact measurement method that uses a camera to detect physiological indicators. On the other hand, wearing a mask has become essential today when COVID-19 is rampant, which has become a new challenge for heart rate (HR) estimation from facial videos recorded by a camera. OBJECTIVE: The aim is to propose an iPPG-based method that can accurately estimate HR with or without a mask. METHODS: First, the facial regions of interest (ROI) were divided into two sub-ROIs, and the original signal was obtained through spatial averaging with different weights according to the result of judging whether wearing a mask or not, and the CDF, which emphasizes the main component signal, was combined with the improved POS suitable for real-time HR estimation to obtain the noise-removed BVP signal...

AIMS: Although cardiovascular (CV) mortality increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, little is known about how these patterns varied across key subgroups, include age, sex, and race and ethnicity, as well as by specific cause of CV death. METHODS AND RESULTS: The Centers for Disease Control WONDER database was used to evaluate trends in age-adjusted CV mortality between 1999 and 2020 among US adults aged 18 and older. Overall, there was a 4.6% excess CV mortality in 2020 compared to 2019, which represents an absolute excess of 62 802 deaths...

Background: Large cardiovascular outcomes trials in individuals with heart failure, with and without diabetes, have demonstrated a significant risk reduction in the composite outcome of cardiovascular death or hospitalizations for heart failure with SGLT2 inhibitor therapy. These positive outcomes have led to the recommendation that SGLT2 inhibitors serve as backbone therapy in patients with heart failure reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). To date, there has not been enough participants in clinical trials on concomitant SGLT2 inhibitor and angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitor therapy to evaluate the benefits and risks of combination therapy with these two agents outside of smaller subgroup analyses...

The mounting complexity of new modalities in the biopharmaceutical industry entails a commensurate level of analytical innovations to enable the rapid discovery and development of novel therapeutics and vaccines. Hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) has become one of the widely preferred separation techniques for the analysis and purification of biopharmaceuticals under nondenaturing conditions. Inarguably, HIC method development remains very challenging and labor-intensive owing to the numerous factors that are typically optimized by a "hit-or-miss" strategy (e...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

PURPOSE: Hypotension is a risk factor for adverse perioperative outcomes. Preoperative transthoracic echocardiography has been extended for preoperative risk assessment before noncardiac surgery. This study aimed to develop a machine learning model to predict postinduction hypotension risk using preoperative echocardiographic data and compared it with conventional statistic models. We also aimed to identify preoperative echocardiographic factors that cause postinduction hypotension. METHODS: In this retrospective observational study, we extracted data from electronic health records of patients aged >18 years who underwent general anesthesia at a single tertiary care center between April 2014 and September 2019...

Dysregulation of the imprinted H19/IGF2 locus can lead to Silver-Russell syndrome (SRS) in humans. However, the mechanism of how abnormal H19/IGF2 expression contributes to various SRS phenotypes remains unclear, largely due to incomplete understanding of the developmental functions of these two genes. We previously generated a mouse model with humanized H19/IGF2 imprinting control region ( hIC1 ) on the paternal allele that exhibited H19/Igf2 dysregulation together with SRS-like growth restriction and perinatal lethality...

BACKGROUND: Preoperative telemonitoring of vital signs, physical activity, and well-being might be able to optimize prehabilitation of the patient's physical and mental condition prior to surgery, support setting alarms during in-hospital monitoring, and allow personalization of the postoperative recovery process. OBJECTIVE: The primary aim of this study was to evaluate when and how long patients awaiting major abdominal surgery should be monitored to get reliable preoperative individual baseline values of heart rate (HR), daily step count, and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs)...

BACKGROUND: Home health monitoring shows promise in improving health outcomes; however, navigating the literature remains challenging given the breadth of evidence. There is a need to summarize the effectiveness of monitoring across health domains and identify gaps in the literature. In addition, ethical and user-centered frameworks are important to maximize the acceptability of health monitoring technologies. OBJECTIVE: This review aimed to summarize the clinical evidence on home-based health monitoring through a scoping review and outline ethical and user concerns and discuss the challenges of the current user-oriented conceptual frameworks...

OBJECTIVES: To compare short term variation (STV) and phase rectified signal averaging (PRSA) and their association with fetal outcome in early onset fetal growth restriction (FGR). METHODS: Data were used from a retrospective cohort study of women who were admitted for FGR and/or pre-eclampsia and who were delivered by pre-labor Cesarean section or had a fetal death before 32 weeks' gestation. Computerized cardiotocography (cCTG) registrations of the 5 days before delivery or fetal death were used for calculation of STV and PRSA...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Remote ischemic conditioning (RIC) has attracted much attention as a protective strategy for the heart and brain, although the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We hypothesized that RIC enhances collateral circulation during cerebral ischemia through endothelial function and mitigates both early ischemic change and final infarct volume. We tested the RIC and sham procedure 30 min after permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in male mice. Collateral circulation was examined during the procedure with 2D color-coded ultrasound imaging...

Phytoestrogens are non-steroidal, polyphenolic compounds that are derived from plants and have biological properties similar to those of human estrogens. Their bioactivity, which is based on the core ring system, is caused by their structural resemblance to estrogen. Flavonoids, coumestans, lignans, and stilbenes are the four major categories into which they can be divided. They are structurally and functionally related to ovarian and placental estrogens, which are essential in female reproductive processes...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To review myocarditis and pericarditis developing after COVID-19 vaccinations and identify the management strategies. RECENT FINDINGS: COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are safe and effective. Systemic side effects of the vaccines are usually mild and transient. The incidence of acute myocarditis/pericarditis following COVID-19 vaccination is extremely low and ranges 2-20 per 100,000. The absolute number of myocarditis events is 1-10 per million after COVID-19 vaccination as compared to 40 per million after a COVID-19 infection...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Prior European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines endorsed the SCORE 10-year cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk calculator to inform the total risk approach to CVD prevention, including the use of preventive interventions like lipid lowering therapies. However, SCORE was released in 2003, did not allow for estimation of fatal and non-fatal CVD events, and was limited to adults aged 40 to 70 years. The ESC's Cardiovascular Risk Collaboration (CRC) was tasked with updating SCORE (SCORE2) and with extending the upper age range of adults eligible for risk estimation (SCORE2-OP)...

In the Netherlands, concerns have been raised regarding the high unemployment rates and the lack of permanent positions for young medical specialists. In the current study, we present data on contemporary early career perspectives in the field of cardiology. We conducted a survey among 304 young cardiologists who completed their training between 2015 and 2020; the response rate was 91%. Our analysis revealed a low unemployment rate (0.3%). One, 3 and 5 years after registration, 81%, 41% and 18% of the respondents, respectively, had not gained a permanent position...

This study aims to see how supplementing broiler chickens with Ficus exasperata leaf powder (FELP) and vitamin C affects carcass characteristics, brain and meat oxidative enzymes and cholesterol levels in tropical conditions. Three hundred thirty-six-day-old chicks (comprising of 168 Cobb 500 breed chicks and 168 Arbor Acre breed chicks) of broiler chicks weighing 37.40 ± 0.45 g were assigned to 8 experimental diets of 7 replicates (6 birds/replicate; 42 birds/treatment). Diets 1 and 2 were not supplemented, while diets 3 and 4 had vitamin C (200 mg/kg of basal diet) supplementation...

INTRODUCTION: Exomphalos is an anterior abdominal wall defect resulting in herniation of contents into the umbilical cord. Severe associated chromosomal anomalies and congenital heart disease (CHD) are known to influence mortality, but it is not clear which cardiac anomalies have the greatest impact on survival. METHODS: We performed a retrospective review of the treatment and outcome of patients with exomphalos over a 30-year period (1990-2020), with a focus on those with the combination of exomphalos major and major CHD (EMCHD)...

Balloon ablation therapy has recently been used for atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation. Laser balloons possess the property in which the balloon size can be changed. Standard laser balloon ablation (Standard LBA) was followed by additional ablation using a maximally extended balloon (Extended LBA) and its lesion characteristics were compared to cryoballoon ablation (CBA), another balloon technology. From June 2020 to July 2021, patients with paroxysmal AF who underwent an initial pulmonary vein (PV) isolation were enrolled...

The recently published guidelines of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) on the management of patients with ventricular arrhythmias and the prevention of sudden cardiac death is an update of the 2015 guideline. For the first time a new section is dedicated to public basic life support. In the acute treatment of ventricular arrhythmias electrical cardioversion is upgraded, and there is a new focus on the management of electrical storm. Recommendations for the comprehensive diagnostic evaluation of patients with first manifestations of ventricular arrhythmias structured according to common clinical scenarios are also new...