We present a case of successful implantation of a permanent pacemaker through an unusual course of a persistent left superior vena cava (PLSVC). A young male patient presented with symptomatic bradycardia and a heart rate of 35 beats per minute. The pacing lead was introduced through the standard left subclavian vein approach and was found to pass through an unusual course that was suspected to...

Methods After informed consent, 36 patients (age, 45.9 ± 10.1 years; male/female= 25/11, Heart rate=65 ± 8bpm) with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) underwent CMRI at 3T (TimTrio, Siemens) and right heart catheterization in the same day. After Four-chamber cine images were acquired during short breath-holds with a retrospectively gated turbo FLASH gradient-echo sequence and...

BACKGROUND It has previously been shown that the morphology of the P-wave neither depends on atrial size in healthy subjects with physiologically enlarged atria nor on the physiological anatomical variation in transverse orientation of the left atrium. The present study aimed to investigate if different pressures in the left and right atrium are associated with different P-wave morphologies. ...

BACKGROUND We test the hypothesis that cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging-based indices of four-dimensional (4D) (three dimensions (3D) + time) right ventricle (RV) function have predictive values in ascertaining invasive pulmonary arterial systolic pressure (PASP) measurements from right heart catheterization (RHC) in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). METHODS We stud...

In the near future it should be possible to estimate the severity of mitral regurgitation and select patients for operation on purely clinical grounds. In the present state of knowledge haemodynamic data are obtained from right and left heart catheterization to give accuracy to the diagnosis of the individual case and quantitative meaning to the physical signs of the disease. Catheterization mu...

BACKGROUND The most widely used experimental models of infective endocarditis (IE) are the rabbit and rat models, in which cardiac valve lesions are induced by a polyethylene catheter introduced into the left ventricle through the aortic valve. Our study was designed to create a rabbit model of IE right-sided with echocardiographic guidance. METHODS Thirty rabbits underwent both catheterizati...

Recent years have seen the place of the pulmonary artery catheter in intensive care increasingly challenged, with one recent study reporting no difference in outcome in patients treated with or without a pulmonary artery catheter. However, this study has several methodological flaws and, although pulmonary artery catheterization should not be performed routinely on all patients, when used corre...

Figure 1 Right heart catheterization showing prominent v wave and abrupt y descent in right atrial pressure (left, red arrows) and a rapid increase in right ventricular pressure during early diastole (right, red arrows). RA: right atrium; RV: right ventricle. was performed without postoperative complications. The patient was discharged from the intensive care unit to the general ward with sever...

BACKGROUND Little is known about the hemodynamic response to exercise in heart failure patients at various ages before and after heart transplantation (HT). This information is important because postoperative hemodynamics may be a predictor of survival. To investigate the hemodynamic response to HT and exercise, we grouped our patients based on preoperative age and examined their hemodynamics a...