Twenty-six patients underwent arterial counterpulsation for refractory heart failure without shock complicating acute myocardial infarction. Patients were divided into a group of 12 with continuing myocardial ischaemia, evidenced by anginal pain associated with abnormal ST segment elevation, and a group of 14 without continuing ischaemia. Clinical features (apart from pain) and prognostic indic...

Predisposing factors [2] Conditions causing arterial emboli eg, mural thrombus following myocardial infarction, auricular thrombus associated with mitral stenosis and AF, septic emboli from valvular endocarditis, fragments of proximal aortic thrombus, arterial catheterisation dislodging bits of plaque. Conditions causing arterial thrombosis atherosclerosis (most common), aortic aneurysm or diss...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to estimate the value of preoperative electrocardiographic (ECG) monitoring in predicting postoperative cardiac events in patients undergoing abdominal aortic surgery. DESIGN A prospective open study. SETTING University Hospital. MATERIALS One hundred consecutive patients were studied before aortic or aortofemoral surgery by ambulatory ECG monitori...

Preconditioning the heart with brief periods of ischaemia induces delayed endothelial protection against reperfusion injury, but the precise mechanisms involved in this endogenous protein are still unclear. Induction of the type II-nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) acts as a mediator of the preconditioning against myocardial infarction and stunning. The present study was designed to assess whether i...

PURPOSE Despite the use of animal models to study post-cardiac-arrest resuscitation, the effects of hypothermia on physiological circulatory parameters are still not fully understood. In this study, using a gerbil model of global ischaemia/reperfusion, we aimed to assess the effects of hypothermia on physiological parameters and evaluated the optimal timing for the induction of hypothermia to a...

Delayed cerebral ischaemia has been described as the single most important cause of morbidity and mortality in patients who survive the initial aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage. Our understanding of the pathophysiology of delayed cerebral ischaemia is meagre at best and the calcium channel blocker nimodipine remains the only intervention to consistently improve functional outcome after aneur...

INTRODUCTION We aimed to determine the efficacy of remote ischaemic preconditioning in the hind limb of rats for ischaemic damage of the spinal cord through neurological and histological investigation and examination of heat shock proteins (HSP). MATERIAL AND METHODS Thirty male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into three groups as Group 1 (control group, n=10), Group 2 (ischaemia control gro...

In rats, cortical spreading hyperaemia is coupled to a spreading neuroglial depolarization wave (spreading depression) under physiological conditions, whereas cortical spreading ischaemia is coupled to it if red blood cell products are present in the subarachnoid space. Spreading ischaemia has been proposed as the pathophysiological correlate of the widespread cortical infarcts abundantly found...

OBJECTIVE To determine the usual triggers of silent and symptomatic ischaemia. DESIGN Patients wore an ambulatory recorder for 48 hours. The device emitted a tone on detection of ischaemia and patients noted activities, feelings, and symptoms so that ischaemia could be attributed to one of four triggers: physical stress, mental stress, combined physical/mental stress, or no stressor. SETTIN...

High permeability oedema is an important feature in lung injury secondary to ischaemia-reperfusion. This study investigated the influence of aerosolized prostaglandin E1 (PGE1), prostaglandin I2 (PCI2) and the nitric oxide (NO)-donor, sodium nitroprusside (SNP) on microvascular barrier function in pulmonary ischaemia-reperfusion. Buffer-perfused rabbit lungs were exposed to 180 or 210 min of wa...