holt-oram syndrome is an autosomal dominant disorder, characterised by skeletal abnormalities of the upper limb associated with congenital heart defect, mainly atrial and ventricular septal defects. skeletal defects exclusively affect the upper limbs in the preaxial radial ray distribution and are bilateral and asymmetrical. they range from clinodactyly, absent or digitalised thumb, hypoplastic...

BACKGROUND The heart has been demonstrated not only to be a pumping organ but also an endocrine organ secreting atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP). We hypothesized that myocardial ischemia may affect ANP secretion and that reperfusion therapy for acute myocardial infarction can preserve endocrine function of the heart. METHODS AND RESULTS Twenty patients with acute right ventricular infarction ...

BACKGROUND Subcostal planes allow demonstration of the entire right ventricular cavity and are frequently used in patients with congenital heart disease; however, their clinical utility in the evaluation of systemic right ventricular function after atrial switch procedure for complete transposition has never been verified in adolescent and adult patients. METHODS In unselected patients with s...

patients with valvular heart disease suffer from atrial fibrillation for more than 12 months after valve surgery and have a low probability of remaining in sinus rhythm. we performed an intra-operative procedure similar to surgical maze ііі procedure for conversion of this arrhythmia to sinus rhythm. we did this study to evaluate the efficacy of this procedure to restore the sinus rhythm in pat...

Relationships among plasma renin activities (PRA), plasma angiotensin II (ATII) concentrations, atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) concentrations and cardiopulmonary function values were examined in dogs with ascitic pulmonary heartworm disease and acute- and chronic-vena caval syndrome (CS). PRA, plasma ATII concentration and plasma ANP concentration tended to be higher or were significantly hig...

P ulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare, debilitat-ing disease characterized by an occlusive pulmonary vas-culopathy, resulting in elevated pulmonary vascular resistance and subsequently death from right ventricular (RV) failure. 1 Current therapeutic options in PAH are limited to pulmonary vasodilator therapy, which have improved clinical outcomes but only target part of the underlyin...

BACKGROUND Exercise is able to induce atrial remodeling in top-level athletes. However, evidence is mainly limited to men and based on cross-sectional studies. The aim of this prospective, longitudinal study was to investigate whether exercise is able to influence left and right atrial morphology and function also in female athletes. :ETHODS AND RESULTS- Two-dimensional echocardiography was per...