hypertension

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Arteriosclerosis can reflect the severity of hypertension, which is one of the main diseases threatening human life safety. But Arteriosclerosis retinopathy detection involves costly and time-consuming manual assessment. To meet the urgent needs of automation, this paper developed a novel arteriosclerosis retinopathy grading method based on convolutional neural network. METHODS: Firstly, we propose a good scheme for extracting features facing the fundus blood vessel background using image merging for contour enhancement...

OBJECTIVES: The lectin-like oxidized low-density lipoprotein receptor-1 (LOX-1) is upregulated in the maternal vasculature in preeclampsia, and contributes to oxidative stress and endothelial dysfunction. However, its function in the placenta is unclear. This paper investigated LOX-1 expression in models of placental dysfunction and preeclampsia, and whether candidate therapeutics for preeclampsia could alter its expression. STUDY DESIGN: Placentas were collected from preterm pregnancies and cases of preterm preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction...

BACKGROUND: Analyses of COVID-19 infection outcomes in patients with preexisting pulmonary sarcoidosis are lacking and are limited to case reports or small case series with the largest study reporting outcomes of 37 patients. RESEARCH QUESTION: Retrospective cohort study to assess clinical outcomes of 945 patients with pulmonary sarcoidosis, presenting with COVID 19, compared to a propensity matched cohort of patients without sarcoidosis. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Analysis of a multi-center research network TriNETX was performed including patients more than 16 years of age diagnosed with COVID-19...

BACKGROUND: The goal of this cohort study was to estimate the predictors for ischemic stroke in patients with epilepsy in a large database containing data from general practitioners in Germany using machine learning methods. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study included 11,466 patients aged ≥ 60 years with an initial diagnosis of epilepsy in 1182 general practices in Germany between January 2010 and December 2018 from the IQVIA Disease Analyzer database...

Since 2019, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), impaired public health with considerable morbidity and mortality due to the lack of vaccines and effective treatment. The severe disease mainly harmed adults with predisposing medical comorbidities (such as heart disease, hypertension, chronic lung disease), while it can occur in healthy individuals that may be asymptomatic. Wastewater-based Epidemiology (WBE), a non-invasive, objective, chemical tool was used to monitor and estimate the changes in drug's consumption and prescription patterns under normal conditions (2019) and under COVID-19 pandemic conditions (2020)...

OBJECTIVE: Among patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), the prevalence of hidden hypercortisolism (HidHyCo, formally called subclinical hypercortisolism or mild autonomous cortisol secretion) was estimated to be 2.2-12.1%. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the available literature helps to identify the characteristics of T2D patients more frequently associated with HidHyCo. METHODS: A meta-analysis was performed using studies that assessed both the prevalence of HidHyCo in patients with T2D and the characteristics of these patients with and without HidHyCo...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between prenatal exposure to solar radiation and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP). DESIGN: A multicenter retrospective study. SETTING: 19 hospitals in the U.S. POPULATION: 205,888 women with singleton gestation from the Consortium on Safe Labor (2002- 2008). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Gestational hypertension, preeclampsia/eclampsia, and preeclampsia superimposed on chronic hypertension...

BACKGROUND: As clinical signs of COVID-19 differ widely among individuals, from mild to severe, the definition of risk groups has important consequences for recommendations to the public, control measures and patient management, and needs to be reviewed regularly. AIM: The aim of this study was to explore risk factors for in-hospital mortality and intensive care unit (ICU) admission for hospitalised COVID-19 patients during the first epidemic wave in Switzerland, as an example of a country that coped well during the first wave of the pandemic...

AIMS: Physical frailty is a commonly encountered geriatric syndrome among older adults without coronary heart disease (CHD). The impact of frailty on the incidence of long-term cardiovascular outcomes is not known. We aimed to evaluate the long-term association of frailty, measured by the Fried frailty phenotype, with all-cause-mortality and MACE among older adults without a history of CHD at baseline in the National Health and Aging Trends Study. METHODS AND RESULTS: We used the National Health and Aging Trends Study, a prospective cohort study linked to a Medicare sample...

BACKGROUND: Despite the rising global burden, Sri Lanka reported a relatively low caseload and mortality (13 deaths as of 20 October 2020) for COVID-19. This warrants exploration of the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of the case series during the initial passive case detection phase in Sri Lanka, in order to understand the success in containment of the disease for more than nine months in the country through its initial early and rapid pandemic response. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted using secondary data (hospital records and investigation reports) extracted from all laboratory-confirmed patients admitted to the three main state-sector hospitals in Sri Lanka from 11 March to 7 April 2020...

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has become the current health concern and threat to the entire world. Thus, the world needs the fast recognition of appropriate drugs to restrict the spread of this disease. The global effort started to identify the best drug compounds to treat COVID-19, but going through a series of clinical trials and our lack of information about the details of the virus's performance has slowed down the time to reach this goal...

BACKGROUND: Burgeoning burden of non-communicable disease among older adults is one of the emerging public health problems. In the COVID-19 pandemic, health services in low- and middle-income countries, including Bangladesh, have been disrupted. This may have posed challenges for older adults with non-communicable chronic conditions in accessing essential health care services in the current pandemic. The present study aimed at exploring the challenges experienced by older Bangladeshi adults with non-communicable chronic conditions in receiving regular health care services during the COVID-19 pandemic...

OBJECTIVE: We explored longitudinal trends in sociodemographic characteristics, reported symptoms, laboratory findings, pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment, comorbidities, and 30-day in-hospital mortality among hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). METHODS: This retrospective cohort study included patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in the United States Veterans Health Administration between 03/01/20 and 08/31/20 and followed until 09/30/20...

PURPOSE: Ossiculoplasty outcome parameter staging (OOPS) and middle ear risk index (MERI) are the most commonly used indices for predicting prognosis of patients with chronic otitis media (COM). This study aimed to verify the efficiency of OOPS and MERI scores in predicting outcomes of patients with COM who underwent tympanoplasty. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the data of patients who underwent tympanoplasty (n = 526). OOPS, and MERI scores were collected...

OBJECTIVE: People with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (PWH) have increased prevalence of multimorbidity and frailty at younger ages compared to the general population. This study investigated individual and combinatorial effects of neuropsychiatric and medical comorbidities as predictors of frailty in PWH. DESIGN: Analysis of data from the National NeuroAIDS Tissue Consortium, a longitudinal observational cohort. METHODS: 524 PWH over age 40 were classified using Fried's Frailty criteria...

cGMP-dependent protein kinase 1α (PKG1α) promotes left ventricle (LV) compensation to pressure overload. PKG1-activating drugs improve heart failure (HF) outcomes but are limited by vasodilation-induced hypotension. Signaling molecules which mediate PKG1α cardiac therapeutic effects but do not promote PKG1α-induced hypotension could therefore represent improved therapeutic targets. We investigated roles of mixed lineage kinase 3 (MLK3) in mediating PKG1α effects on LV function after pressure overload, and in regulating blood pressure (BP)...

Innate immunity and chronic inflammation are involved in atherosclerosis and atherothrombosis leading to target organ damage in essential hypertension (EH). However, the role of neutrophils in EH is still elusive. We investigated the association between angiotensin II (Ang II) and neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in pathogenesis of EH. Plasma samples, kidney biopsies and surgical specimens of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) from EH patients were used. Cell-based assays, NETs/human aortic endothelial cells co-cultures and in situ studies were performed...

Cardiac inflammation and fibrosis contribute significantly to hypertension-related adverse cardiac remodeling. IκB kinase β (IKKβ), a central coordinator of inflammation through activation of NF-κB, has been demonstrated as a key molecular link between inflammation and cardiovascular disease. However, the cell-specific contribution of IKKβ signaling towards adverse cardiac remodeling remains elusive. Cardiac fibroblasts are one of the most populous non-myocyte cell types in the heart that play a key role in mediating cardiac fibrosis and remodeling...

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is the most common chronic lung disease of prematurity resulting from complex interactions of perinatal factors that often lead to prolonged respiratory support and increased pulmonary morbidity. There is also growing appreciation for the dysmorphic pulmonary bed characterized by vascular growth arrest and remodeling, resulting in pulmonary vascular disease (PVD) and its most severe form, pulmonary hypertension (PH) in children with BPD. In this review, we comprehensively discuss the pathophysiology of PH in children with BPD, evaluate the current recommendations for screening and diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension, discern associated comorbid conditions, and outline the current treatment options...

BACKGROUND/AIM: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) affects approximately ~25% of the global adult population. The aim of this narrative review is to describe the associations between NAFLD and cardiovascular disease (CVD), arrhythmias, cardiac conduction defects, myocardial remodelling and heart failure. We also discuss the potential mechanisms that mediate or attenuate the strength of these associations, and briefly summarize the effect of treatments that both ameliorate NAFLD and decrease risk of CVD...