BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Two approaches to target plaque vulnerability-a histopathologic classification scheme and a biomechanical analysis-were compared and the implications for noninvasive risk stratification of carotid plaques using magnetic resonance imaging were assessed. METHODS Seventy-five histological plaque cross sections were obtained from carotid endarterectomy specimens from 34 pat...

introduction: the formalin test is the most accepted chemical test for evaluation of nociception. it requires the injection of an adequate amount of formalin into the surface of the hindpaw. formalin test consists of phase 1 (0-7 min) and phase 2 (15-60) in which the animal shows painful behaviors. these phases are separated with a quiet phase named interphase, in which the nociceptive response...

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Many cardiovascular diseases are better diagnosed during a cardiac stress test. Current approaches include either exercise or pharmacological stress echocardiography and pharmacological stress magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). MRI is the most accurate noninvasive method of assessing cardiac function. Currently there are very few ex...

Stress can have a negative and costly impact on people’s lives. Mitigating stress before it becomes a problem requires early, noninvasive identification and a deeper understanding of the signals of stress. To test automatic stress detection a new dataset was created with subjects completing the Stroop task under unstressed and stressed conditions. This paper examines to what degree speech featu...

In this issue of the RESPIRATORY CARE, Monteiro and colleagues1 contribute to the scientific literature of COPD by applying in these patients a modality of noninvasive ventilation that has not yet been studied in depth during exercise: expiratory positive airway pressure (EPAP). The authors evaluated the effects of EPAP delivered by a spring load resistor face mask on dynamic hyperinflation dur...

OBJECTIVES This study sought to verify the effectiveness of pharmacologic stress echocardiography in risk stratification of patients with single-vessel disease. BACKGROUND Noninvasive prognostic assessment of single-vessel disease is an unresolved issue to date. METHODS The study evaluated prospectively collected data from 754 patients with angiographic single-vessel disease who underwent e...

OBJECTIVES We evaluated regional diastolic function by pulsed Doppler myocardial mapping for the detection of left ventricular ischemia during pharmacologic stress testing. BACKGROUND Evaluation and quantification of diastolic myocardial function remain a challenge for imaging techniques in stress tests. METHODS A prospective study compared the detection of coronary artery stenosis: 1) by pulse...

I. The average reported sensitivity and specificity of thallium exercise testing in 2,877 cumulative cases published since 1983 (2-7), weighted for the number of cases in each study, is 83% and 53%, respectively, associated with approximately 17% false negative and 47% false positive results (Table I). 2. Referral bias cannot completely explain this poor diagnostic accuracy, which is therefore ...

Accurate and safe diagnostic testing provides the crucial link between detection and optimal management of coronary artery disease (CAD). Noninvasive diagnostic testing for CAD may be less accurate in women than in men. Many noninvasive diagnostic modalities are available for this purpose. An exercise tolerance test provides an assessment of functional capacity and has the advantages of wide av...