BACKGROUND Myocardial oxygen consumption (MVO2) and its coupling to contractile work are fundamentals of cardiac function and may be involved causally in the transition from compensated left ventricular hypertrophy to failure. Nevertheless, these processes have not been studied previously in patients with aortic valve stenosis (AS). METHODS AND RESULTS Participants underwent 11C-acetate posit...

BACKGROUND Low-flow, low-gradient aortic stenosis (AS), associated with a poor prognosis, can be caused by a reduced stroke volume despite a preserved ejection fraction (left ventricular ejection fraction). We hypothesized that impaired ventricular diastolic filling secondary to constrictive pericarditis (CP) could contribute to reduced transaortic gradients in patients with AS+CP. We sought to...

Right ventricular function at rest and during exercise was examined in a group of patients with symptomatic aortic or mitral valve disease, or both. The right ventricular ejection fraction was less than 45% in 22 of 36 patients at rest and in 12 of 17 subjects at symptom-limited, supine bicycle exercise. The right ventricular ejection fraction failed to increase more than 5% with exercise in 17...

Abstract Background Thalassemia intermedia is a variety of beta thalassemia which shows clinical symptoms somewhere between asymptomatic carriers and thalassemia major. Cardiac dysfunctions due to chronic anemia and hemosiderosis are the major causes of death in these patients. The purpose of this study is to evaluate cardiac function in these patients by echocardiography. Materials and Met...

Wharton’s jelly mesenchymal stem cells (HWJMSCs) hold promise for myocardial regeneration, but optimal treatment regimen (preferably with a growth factor) is required to maximize functional benefits. The aim of this study was to explore the cardioprotective and angiogenesis effects of HWJMSCs combined with insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in the treatment of acute myocardial infarction. Th...

OBJECTIVE The association between biochemical markers and left ventricular ejection fraction in patients with myocardial infarction was not completely studied. Our goal is to study the association between biochemical markers and left ventricular dysfunction in patients with ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction. METHODS With an observational and prospective design we included patients with...

In 1980, we reported that patients with aortic stenosis (AS) who had a low mean gradient ( 30 mm Hg) and low ejection fraction ( 0.30) fared poorly following aortic valve replacement (AVR) (1). We also demonstrated that while ejection fraction may be reduced in AS either because of afterload mismatch or contractile dysfunction, in patients with low transvalvular gradient, afterload mismatch is ...

Seventy subjects with suspected coronary artery disease were studied by radionuclide angiocardiography. Delayed or paradoxically emptying regions of the left ventricle were detected by a relatively new nuclear technique--phase imaging. The results were assessed in the light of cardiac catheterisation findings. Compared with 19 normals, regions with abnormally high phase (and therefore late empt...

Background: Cardiac dysfunction due to chronic anemia and hemosiderosis are the major causes of death among patients with thalassemia intermedia. This study was performed to compare the cardiac function in thalassemia intermedia patients with normal subjects by means of echocardiography. Materials and Methods: This was a case-control study performed on 22 patients affected by thalassemia int...