Cardiac function and renal function gradually decrease with aging. Therefore, atrial fibrillation, as an expression of myocardial dysfunction, and conditions with reduced renal filtration of endogenous and exogenous substances often coexist. Both cardiac dysfunction and renal dysfunction are associated with increased risk of thromboembolism, which is further amplified by concurrent atrial fibri...

a 73-year-old female patient developed a generalized tonic-clonic seizure on the 6th day after treatment with moxifloxacin 400 mg daily intravenously for appendicitis. this patient had atrial fibrillation and history of a surgery for intracerebral hemorrhage, with impaired renal function and liver function, but without history of seizures. moxifloxacin was discontinued and switched to cefuroxim...

background: echocardiographic evaluations of the longitudinal axis of the left ventricular (lv) function have been used in the diagnosis and assessment of heart failure with normal ejection fraction (hfnef). the evaluation of the global and segmental peak systolic longitudinal strains (pslss) by two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (ste) may correlate with conventional echocardiogr...

AIMS Atrial function is an important component in overall cardiovascular performance. However, information on atrial function in dilated cardiomyopathy is limited. This study aimed to assess atrial function in dilated cardiomyopathy and to investigate if parameters of atrial function are more impaired in Chagas dilated cardiomyopathy (CDC) than in idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDC). METH...

Objective The underlying mechanisms responsible for both electrical and mechanical remodeling of the atrium after cardioversion of atrial tachyarrhythmias may be similar, but they are still incompletely understood, and whether the changes in atrial myocardium structure after short-term rapid atrial activation is the basis for this remodeling is unknown. We aimed to investigate atrial mechanical...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the acute effects of atrial pacing at different pacing sites on mechanical stunning after cardioversion of atrial fibrillation (AF). SETTING Tertiary referral centre. PATIENTS 20 patients with persistent AF were studied. INTERVENTIONS Spontaneous echo contrast (SEC), left atrial appendage emptying velocity (LAAEV), and left atrial appendage emptying fraction (LAAEF) ...

In the prediction of the risk of cardiovascular events, the role of the left ventricle (LV) has been established for a long time, in the general population and especially in patients with heart failure. LV dimensions and systolic function, the latter mainly expressed as ejection fraction, were the first variables investigated; over the years, the role of predictors of cardiovascular outcomes ha...

The atrium has been considered for too many years a neglected chamber and because of this the assessment of atrial function is still a challenge. More recently, new noninvasive diagnostic modalities have shed new light on atrial role in several diseases. The assessment of atrial function may have particular relevance for the growing epidemic of atrial fibrillation which currently affects nearly...