BACKGROUND The severity of epicardial coronary stenosis can be assessed by invasive measurements of trans-stenotic pressure drop and flow. A pressure or flow sensor-tipped guidewire inserted across the coronary stenosis causes an overestimation in true trans-stenotic pressure drop and reduction in coronary flow. This may mask the true severity of coronary stenosis. In order to unmask the true s...

BACKGROUND The relationship between severity of preoperative radiographic findings and surgical outcomes following decompression for lumbar degenerative spinal canal stenosis is unclear. Our aim in this paper was to gain insight into this relationship. We determined pre-operative radiographic severity on MRI scans using strict methodological controls and correlated such severity with post-opera...

The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between trauma severity and the degree of cord injury in patients with ossification of posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL). Four-hundred-one patients were classified into Group A (OPLL(+)), Group B (spinal stenosis (+) and OPLL(-)), and Group C (OPLL (-) and spinal stenosis(-)). Trauma severity and neurological injury severity were co...

Increasing evidence suggests that erythrocytes may participate in atherogenesis. We sought to investigate whether the total cholesterol content of erythrocyte membranes (CEM) is significantly different in patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD) compared to patients with nonsignificant coronary stenosis and determine the correlation between CEM and the severity of coronary stenosis. M...

Assessment of coronary artery stenosis severity depends on either determination of the anatomic dimensions of the stenosis by angiographic techniques or assessment of the functional significance of the stenosis by measurement of its effect on blood flow. Measurement of myocardial blood flow during maximal pharmacological vasodilation (vasodilator reserve) has been used to examine the functional...

The 2001 Report of the National Confidential Enquiry into Perioperative Deaths recommended that an echocardiogram should be performed on patients with aortic stenosis prior to anaesthesia. In this study we present the patient details, management and outcome of the 272 hip fracture patients with a previously undiagnosed murmur and echocardiographically proven aortic stenosis admitted from 2001-2...

Pressure-based fractional flow reserve (FFR) is used clinically to evaluate the functional severity of a coronary stenosis, by predicting relative maximal coronary flow (Q(s)/Q(n)). It is considered to be independent of hemodynamic conditions, which seems unlikely because stenosis resistance is flow dependent. Using a resistive model of an epicardial stenosis (0-80% diameter reduction) in serie...

Indices have been developed that provide an improved means for evaluation of the degrees of severity of mitral stenosis and regurgitation. The severity of anatomic mitral valve disease found at surgery or autopsy was considered to be the determinant of the state of the valve. An index of the time for the diastolic atrioventricular pressure gradient to fall to half its value multiplied by 100 an...