BACKGROUND Dronedarone restores sinus rhythm and reduces hospitalization or death in intermittent atrial fibrillation. It also lowers heart rate and blood pressure and has antiadrenergic and potential ventricular antiarrhythmic effects. We hypothesized that dronedarone would reduce major vascular events in high-risk permanent atrial fibrillation. METHODS We assigned patients who were at least...

BACKGROUND Data on sex difference in response to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) remain controversial. We conducted a meta-analysis to summarize all published studies to determine whether sex-based differences in response to CRT exist. METHODS AND RESULTS We performed a literature search using MEDLINE (source PubMed; January 1966 to March 2014) and EMBASE (January 1980 to March 2014) ...

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is highly prevalent among older post-myocardial infarction (MI) patients. It is not known whether CKD is an independent risk factor for mortality in older post-MI patients with optimal cardiovascular drug-treatment. Therefore, we studied the relation between kidney function and all-cause and specific mortality among older post-MI patients, without severe heart failu...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The existing literature provides conflicting evidence on surgical risks of carotid endarterectomy in women compared with men. We used data from a large population-based carotid surgery registry to determine whether sex differences exist in the risk of perioperative complications from carotid endarterectomy. METHODS We analyzed data from the Ontario Carotid Endarterectom...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE To determine whether progression of MRI-defined vascular disease predicts subsequent vascular events in the elderly. METHODS The Cardiovascular Health Study, a longitudinal cohort study of vascular disease in the elderly, allows us to address this question because its participants had 2 MRI scans≈5 years apart and have been followed for ≈9 years since the follow-up scan...

The optimal hemoglobin level in patients with hypertension or heart failure is not yet defined. The aim of the present investigation was to examine the relation of hemoglobin with cardiovascular outcomes in high-risk patients with isolated systolic hypertension (ISH) and left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). In 1,326 patients with ISH in the Losartan Intervention For Endpoint Reduction in Hyperte...

OBJECTIVES The causes of death in dementia are not established, particularly in rarer dementias. The aim of this study is to calculate risk of death from specific causes for a broader spectrum of dementia diagnoses. DESIGN Cohort study. SETTING Swedish Dementia Registry (SveDem), 2007-2012. PARTICIPANTS Individuals with incident dementia registered in SveDem (N = 28,609); median follow-up...

The present danger in the Haitian rebuilding efforts, outside of the extreme level of need that often encourages temporary solutions at the expense of long-term capacity building, centers on the assumption that sustainability and resilience are mutually exclusive. They cannot be if this rare opportunity to achieve meaningful long-term change within a country that has suffered for far too long i...

background : gastric cancer is the one of the most prevalent reason of cancer-related death in the world. survival of patients after surgery involves identifying risk factors. there are various models to detect the effect of risk factors on patients’ survival. the present study aims at evaluating these models. methods : data from 330 gastric cancer patients diagnosed at the iran cancer institut...