BACKGROUND Dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE) is used for risk stratification of patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). However, the prognostic value of DSE among the entire strata of renal function has yet to be determined. We assessed the prognostic value of renal function relative to DSE findings. METHODS We studied 2292 patients, divided into 729 (32%) patients with ...

A constant supply of oxygen is indispensable for cardiac viability and function. However, the role of oxygen and oxygen-associated processes in the heart is complex, and they and can be either beneficial or contribute to cardiac dysfunction and death. As oxygen is a major determinant of cardiac gene expression, and a critical participant in the formation of ROS and numerous other cellular proce...

Background Obesity affects one in five children in the US and these children tend to maintain excess weight into adulthood. It has recently been shown that childhood obesity is associated with both cardiac remodeling (hypertrophy) and contractile dysfunction. However, the etiology of these cardiac changes is not well understood. We hypothesized that cardiac remodeling and dysfunction could not ...

although systolic dysfunction is revealed as a prognostic factor in cardiac surgery , the role of diastolic dysfunction as a predictive factor is less evaluated. in this retrospective study from 872 patients that underwent isolated coronary artery bypass graft(jan 2008-feb 2009),388 patients had normal left ventricular ejection fraction (>50%). these are divided in two groups, group 1: 361 pati...

arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia/cardiomyopathy (arvd/c) is a congenital cardiac disease with myocardial involvement, most probably right ventricular (rv) dysfunction, accounting for 20% of sudden cardiac deaths. characterized by the fibro-fatty infiltration of the rv free wall, arvd/c presents in adolescents with ventricular arrhythmias and heart failure symptoms and as biventricular...

We thank Dr Das for his interest in our case series published in CHEST (May 2010). 1 In his letter, Dr Das emphasizes some of the key clinical data presented in Table 1 of our report on six patients with both pandemic 2009 infl uenza A(H1N1) (A[H1N1 ]) and cardiac dysfunction. We agree that other conditions, including but not limited to sepsis, multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, and peripartu...

Salt-sensitive hypertension is common in the aged population. Increased fruit and vegetable intake reduces hypertension, but its effect on eventual diastolic dysfunction is unknown. This relationship is tested in the Dahl Salt-Sensitive (Dahl-SS) rat model of salt-sensitive hypertension and diastolic dysfunction. Table grape powder contains phytochemicals that are relevant to human diets. For 1...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Cardiac involvement is frequent in systemic amyloidosis and is the most important determinant of the clinical outcome. The aims of this study were to assess the incidence and prognosis of cardiac amyloidosis and discuss the diagnostic issues related to cardiac amyloidosis. SUBJECTS AND METHODS We retrospectively studied all patients diagnosed with systemic amyloidosi...