The images presented here are from a 44-year-old asymptomatic man. At age 36 years, he experienced nonsustained atrial fibrillation. A year later, a transthoracic echocardiogram disclosed an enlarged left ventricle (diastolic dimension, 7.4 cm; ejection fraction, 56%) and a very large coronary sinus with Doppler color flow evidence of diastolic and systolic turbulence consistent with entry of a...

BACKGROUND Exercise and rehabilitation are important methods for decreasing the risk factors of coronary artery disease (CAD). We aimed to evaluate the effect of the cardiac rehabilitation (CR) exercise program on the cardiac structure and physiology in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). METHODS In this randomized controlled study, 146 patients with CAD were divided...

To investigate the relationship between diastolic abnormalities and left ventricular hypertrophy, 52 patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and 22 normal subjects were studied with digitized M mode echocardiography and two-dimensional echocardiography. Echocardiographic indexes of diastolic function were compared in patients with different extent of left ventricular hypertrophy. Time i...

In idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), increased pulmonary vascular resistance is associated with structural narrowing of small (resistance) vessels and increased vascular tone. Current information on pulmonary vascular remodeling is mostly limited to averaged increases in wall thickness, but information on number of vessels affected and internal diameter decreases for vessels of ...

Isolated ostium secundum atrial septal defect (OS-ASD) may rarely lead to severe symptoms in infancy. Over a period of four years, 12 infants admitted to our hospital with severe congestive heart failure had an isolated OS-ASD. Their echocardiographic findings, clinical course, and outcome were outlined. All 12 infants had atypical findings including a holosystolic murmur parasternally and abse...

Ovine models of ischemic heart disease and cardiac failure are increasingly used in translational research. However, reliable extrapolation of the results to the clinical setting requires knowing if ovine normal left ventricular (LV) function is comparable to that of humans. We thus assessed for echocardiographic LV dimensions and indexes in a large normal adult sheep population and compared th...

Nine patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy associated with Friedreich's ataxia were treated with the calcium antagonist verapamil, which is known to reduce myocardial hypertrophy and improve diastolic function in patients with idiopathic hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Daily oral doses of 7 mg/kg were given for a mean (SD) of 24 (8) months. M mode echocardiography performed at the start of the...

Goldberger's triad is a specific, but relatively insensitive, electrocardiographic sign for dilated cardiomyopathy. To study the correlation between the presence of this sign and the severity of left ventricular dysfunction, the electrocardiograms and echocardiographically-determined left ventricular parameters of 17 patients (mean age 59.3 +/- 11.8 years) with dilated cardiomyopathy were exami...