This echocardiographic study was designed to assess left ventricular function and pulmonary blood flow in ventricular septal defect. Fifty-one patients aged 2 weeks to 21 years were investigated (group 2). Five of 10 operated patients were studied one week after surgical closure of the defect (group 3) and seven 3 to 6 weeks postoperatively (group 4). The control group consisted of 45 normal su...

It is well known from epidemiology that values of indices describing physiological state in a given age may influence human morbidity and mortality risks. Studies of connection between aging and life span suggest a possibility that dynamic properties of age trajectories of the physiological indices could also be important contributors to morbidity and mortality risks. In this paper we use data ...

Background—Patients with diastolic heart failure (DHF) have significant abnormalities in left ventricular (LV) diastolic function, including slow and delayed relaxation and increased chamber stiffness. Whether and to what extent these abnormalities in diastolic function occur in association with abnormalities in LV systolic performance, function, and contractility has not been investigated thor...

Self-reported or explicit loneliness and social support have been inconsistently associated with cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to stress. The present study aimed to adapt an implicit measure of loneliness, and use it alongside the measures of explicit loneliness and social support, to investigate their correlations with CVR to laboratory stress. Twenty-five female volunteers aged between 18 a...

BACKGROUND Patients with diastolic heart failure (DHF) have significant abnormalities in left ventricular (LV) diastolic function, including slow and delayed relaxation and increased chamber stiffness. Whether and to what extent these abnormalities in diastolic function occur in association with abnormalities in LV systolic performance, function, and contractility has not been investigated thor...

BACKGROUND End-diastolic volume indices determined by transpulmonary thermodilution and pulmonary artery thermodilution may give a better estimate of left ventricular preload than pulmonary capillary wedge pressure monitoring. The aim of this study was to compare volume preload monitoring using the two different thermodilution techniques with left ventricular preload assessment by transoesophag...

OBJECTIVES We sought to evaluate whether echocardiographic diastolic function indices correlate with myocardial iron and systolic function in patients with transfusion-dependent thalassemia (TDT) who are at risk for cardiomyopathy. BACKGROUND In thalassemia syndromes, there is an important clinical need to risk stratify patients for the development of iron-overload cardiomyopathy so that chel...

BACKGROUND Left ventricular function changes in the postmenopausal state. However, there are conflicting reports about the effects of oestrogen on left ventricular diastolic function in postmenopausal women. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the acute and chronic effects of oestradiol in physiological doses on diastolic heart function in hypertensive postmenopausal women with left ventricular diastolic d...

AIMS We tested the hypothesis that, in heart failure with normal ejection fraction (HFNEF), diastolic dysfunction is accentuated at increasing heart rates, and this contributes to impaired frequency-dependent augmentation of cardiac output. METHODS AND RESULTS In 17 patients with HFNEF (median age 69 years, 13 female) and seven age-matched control patients, systolic and diastolic function was...

Background: Left ventricular function changes in the postmenopausal state. However, there are conflicting reports about the effects of oestrogen on left ventricular diastolic function in postmenopausal women. Objective: To evaluate the acute and chronic effects of oestradiol in physiological doses on diastolic heart function in hypertensive postmenopausal women with left ventricular diastolic d...