background and objectives:  the aim of this study was to survey the relationship between the level of  creatinine,cardiac troponins serum and the function of  the left ventricle in patients with  kidney insufficiency,without acute coronary syndrome.materialsand methods:the sample  was150 patients with nondialysis chronic kidney disease without  acute  coronary  syndrome,  hospitalized  at  imam...

OBJECTIVES Cardiovascular changes during laparoscopic surgery have been described in several studies. Pneumoperitoneum effects on cardiac performance instead have not been much investigated and are less known. The carbon dioxide insufflation necessary in order to perform laparoscopic procedures represents a higher force against which the myocardial fibers must shorten during ventricular contrac...

SUlMMARY To assess the effects of a natural volume overload state (pregnancy) on left ventricular function we recorded echocardiograms each trimester (TM) and four to 12 weeks postpartum. Heart rate increased from 77 ± 2 (SEM) to 88 ± 2 heats/min (TM I vs TM 3, P < 0.01) and declined to 69 ± 2.0 beats/min postpartum (P < 0.05 vs TM 3). Despite these changes, end-diastolic dimension increased fr...

Thirty-three patients with chest pain despite angiographically normal coronary arteries underwent both coronary flow studies during pacing and resting and exercise gated blood pool scintigraphy. During atrial pacing after administration of ergonovine, those patients developing their typical chest pain demonstrated significantly lower great cardiac vein flow (97 ± 31 vs 150 + 33 ml/ min, p < .00...

The physiology of conduit arteries can be approximated noninvasively. One simple method to estimate arterial load is by computation of effective arterial elastance (Ea). Ea incorporates the steady component (peripheral resistance) and the pulsatile components of arterial load, including total arterial compliance and aortic characteristic impedance. Invasive studies and simulations have shown th...

small microspheres, coronary flow initially increased, which suggests the effective release of a vasodilator substance. Return of coronary flow to control levels occurred only after the end-diastolic pressure rose, on the average, to above 30 mm Hg. After embolization with both sizes of microspheres, ventricular diastolic pressure-v6lume relationships showed decreased ventricular compliance. Th...

The feasibility, accuracy and reproducibility of continuous beat-to-beat evaluation of left ventricular performance with a computerized nonimaging scintillation probe was assessed in 71 patients. This portable instrument has enough sensitivity to generate a real-time relative left ventricular volume curve using the labeled equilibrium blood pool without electrocardiographic gating. The probe wa...

The temporal changes in left ventricular performance and hypertrophy after valve replacement for mitral regurgitation (MR) or stenosis (MS) are unclear. We studied 16 patients with MR and 17 patients with MS using echocardiography before and serially after surgery for an average of 15 months. Before surgery, average end-diastolic and end-systolic dimensions (EDD and ESD, respectively) and left ...