To analyze cardiovascular dynamics in essential hypertension, 81 subjects with untreated mild essential hypertension (mean blood pressure, 112 +/- 14 mm Hg) and 87 normotensive subjects from the same working population were studied by echocardiography and simultaneous blood pressure determination. Hypertensive subjects had significantly higher pulse pressure, stroke volume index, cardiac index,...

BACKGROUND Left bundle branch block (LBBB) influences on regional left ventricular (LV) structure, perfusion, and metabolism have not yet been thoroughly investigated in dilated cardiomyopathy patients. METHODS AND RESULTS Eleven dilated cardiomyopathy patients with LBBB (mean+/-SD age, 62+/-11 years; LV ejection fraction, 35+/-8%) and 7 dilated cardiomyopathy patients without LBBB (mean+/-SD...

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...

Mouse myocyte contractility and the changes induced by pressure overload are not fully understood. We studied contractile reserve in isolated left ventricular myocytes from mice with ascending aortic stenosis (AS) during compensatory hypertrophy (4-week AS) and the later stage of early failure (7-week AS) and from control mice. Myocyte contraction and [Ca(2+)](i) transients with fluo-3 were mea...

Fifty consecutive patients undergoing aortic valve replacement for isolated aortic regurgitation were studied prospectively by echocardiography, electrocardiography and cardiac catheterization. Good quality echocardiograms were obtained in 49 of the 50 patients. Left ventricular (LV) dilatation was present in all 49 patients. LV systolic function, as assessed by echocardiographic percent fracti...

OBJECTIVES This study quantified serially biventricular emptying and filling after infarction and related these to changes in volume, muscle mass, wall stress and contractility. BACKGROUND There are limited data on serial changes in ventricular dynamics after infarction. METHODS Forty patients had serial electron beam computed tomographic examinations during the first year after index Q wav...

introduction: the aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of exercise training and l-arginine supplementation on oxidative stress and systolic ventricular function in rats with myocardial infarction (mi). methods: four weeks after the surgically-induced mi, 40 male wistar rats were randomly assigned to the following 4 groups (n=10): mi-sedentary control (sed) mi-exercise (ex) mi-sed...