Slow coronary flow (SCF) in a normal-appearing coronary angiogram is a well-recognized clinical entity, but its etiopathogenesis remains unclear. The aim of the study was to evaluate echocardiographic features in patients with SCF. Thirty-four patients with angiographically proven SCF (group I) and 25 patients with normal coronary flow (group II) ...

AIM: To report our data concerning the changes in post-stress and at-rest left ventricular ejection fraction and ventricular volumes in patients with thallium gated SPECT. METHODS: Post-stress and at-rest thallium gated SPECT was performed in 629 consecutive patients; left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), left ventricular volumes and quantitative perfusion data ...

OBJECTIVES: To determine the frequency of systolic impairment (SI) and its impact on the natural history of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). METHODS: 1080 patients (mean (SD) age 43 (15) years, 660 men) with HCM were evaluated. Initial assessment included history, examination, 48 hour Holter monitoring, cardiopulmonary exercise testing, and echocardiography; SI ...

PURPOSES: We sought to assess the frequency and clinical implications of left ventricular apical ballooning (LVAB) in patients who had been admitted to the medical ICU for noncardiac physical illnesses. METHODS: Ninety-two consecutive patients who were admitted to the medical ICU from March to May 2003 were prospectively enrolled. Patients ...

BACKGROUND: The coronary flow velocity (CFV) has been used to estimate coronary flow reserve (CFR) during dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE). However, the relationship of the CFR to myocardial wall thickening (WT) has not been investigated. OBJECTIVES: The aims of this study were: (1) to assess the feasibility of obtaining systolic ...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prevalence and distribution of gadolinium (Gd) enhancement at cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging in patients with cardiac amyloidosis (CA) and to look for associations with clinical, morphological, and functional features. PATIENTS AND DESIGN: 21 patients with definitely diagnosed CA (nine with immunoglobulin light chain amyloidosis and ...

The objective of this study was to determine the relation between left ventricular (LV) systolic function and the ratio of preceding (RR1) to prepreceding (RR2) R-R intervals in patients with chronic atrial fibrillation (AF) and dilated cardiomyopathy. LV systolic function (Emax) was examined using a conductance catheter with a micromanometer ...

BACKGROUND: The frequency and prognosis of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) caused by secondary hyperparathyroidism (2 degrees HPT) is not known. The purpose of this study was to determine the morbidity of DCM caused by 2 degrees HPT and the efficacy of parathyroidectomy (PTx) in chronic dialysis patients with advanced 2 degrees ...

BACKGROUND: A major goal of revascularization is the recovery of left ventricular (LV) function. Nuclear imaging techniques are widely used for detecting recovery of function with a good sensitivity, but only moderate specificity. Predictors of recovery in chronic total coronary occlusions (CTO) are not investigated. HYPOTHESIS: The 12-lead-resting electrocardiogram (ECG) ...

AIMS: Chagas disease patients often present premature ventricular complexes (PVCs), depression of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and autonomic dysfunction, which is generally evaluated by heart rate variability (HRV) analysis. As frequent PVCs may complicate HRV computation, we measured heart rate turbulence (HRT) and evaluated the correlation between ejection fraction ...

The aim of this study was to investigate whether the prognostic importance of left ventricular (LV) outflow obstruction in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is influenced by other predictors of morbidity and mortality. It remains unknown whether the effect of outflow obstruction on clinical outcome in HCM is influenced by other determinants ...

OBJECTIVES: This study was carried out to assess the repeatability of left ventricular ejection fraction (EF) and volume values obtained using Cedars-Sinai quantitative gated single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) (QGS) software and relatively low doses of 400-600 MBq of 99mTc-tetrofosmin. METHODS: Repeatability was assessed in a group of 75 ...

OBJECTIVES: We sought to examine the relationship of the mitral L wave with echocardiographic indexes of diastolic function and heart failure (HF) events in patients with left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy (LVH). BACKGROUND: The L wave, representing middiastolic transmitral flow, is of unknown clinical and prognostic significance in patients with LVH. ...

We aimed to determine whether the use of left internal mammary artery (LIMA) to the left anterior descending (LAD) artery during coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) confers an improved survival benefit to patients with an impaired preoperative left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). Between April 1997 and March 2004, 7198 consecutive ...

BACKGROUND: Carvedilol is known to decrease the severity of ventricular dysfunction, to increase the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), and, consequently, to reduce morbidity and mortality in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy. There is accumulating evidence that inflammatory cytokines have an important role in the pathogenesis of heart failure. OBJECTIVE: To ...

BACKGROUND: Myocardial characteristics of remote normal regions in patients with myocardial infarction (MI) and left ventricular (LV) remodeling have not been fully elucidated. Thus, we investigated this issue from the viewpoint of myocardial Tl-201 dynamics. METHODS AND RESULTS: In 14 patients with prior anterior MI, 10 with inferior MI, and ...

AIM: Left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy is a common feature in Fabry disease-related progressive infiltrative hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and affects both men and women, but at different ages. To date, however, little is known about the role of right ventricular (RV) function in Fabry disease. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the ...

BACKGROUND: Behçet's disease is a systemic vasculitis in which studies have given conflicting results about ventricular diastolic functions. However, tissue Doppler echocardiography has never been used in any of these studies. Aortic stiffness, a cardiovascular risk factor, may also precede ventricular dysfunction. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to ...

AIMS: The aim of this clinical cross-sectional study was to investigate the cardiac interrelation of morphological and functional abnormalities in patients with Fabry disease. METHODS AND RESULTS: Fifty-one patients (5-78 years) were compared with 25 controls (8-77 years). In all subjects, end-diastolic thickness of the left ventricle was measured by ...

BACKGROUND: The etiology of left ventricular (LV) isolated diastolic dysfunction often remains unclear. In the present study, we report a strong association between parvovirus B19 (PVB19) genomes and isolated LV diastolic dysfunction. METHODS AND RESULTS: In 70 patients (mean+/-SD age, 43+/-11 years) admitted with exertional dyspnea and/or reduced exercise tolerance ...

BACKGROUND: Aortic valve regurgitation (AR) in the pediatric population has increased in recent years because of the expanded use of new surgical and hemodynamic procedures. Unlike adult patients, few predictors for the need of operation have been proposed in young asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patients with AR. METHODS: To unmask ...

The objective of this prospective study was to examine the association between serum levels of TNF (tumor-necrosis factor) and IL-6 (interleukin-6) and left ventricular mass in hypertensive patients. Hypertensive patients currently receiving medical therapy were eligible. All subjects underwent echocardiography with measurements of left ventricular (LV) mass and ejection fraction ...

BACKGROUND: Bosentan, a dual-endothelin receptor antagonist, is an established treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension. We hypothesized that bosentan is safe and well tolerated in patients with Eisenmenger physiology. METHODS: In this pilot open-label study, we primarily examined safety and tolerability of oral bosentan. Patients were recruited from our adult congenital ...

BACKGROUND: Some dialysis patients have impaired left ventricular (LV) function without coronary artery disease. The pathologic changes and prognoses of these patients have not been well described. METHODS: We performed LV endomyocardial biopsies on 40 hemodialysis patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM; an ejection fraction <50% and a left ventricular end-diastolic ...

In order to study the echocardiographic abnormalities in consecutive patients with malignant phase hypertension (MHT), we reviewed echocardiograms of 31 patients (23 male; mean age 52+/-14 years) with MHT who were admitted to our unit. Trans-thoracic echocardiography was carried out in all patients, and echocardiographic measurements were compared with those ...

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular complications are the leading cause of mortality in patients with end-stage renal disease. Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is recognized as an independent risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. At the onset of dialysis, more than 70% of the patients with chronic kidney disease have echocardiographic evidence of ...

Right ventricular (RV) function is notoriously difficult to quantify. Patients with tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) have decreased systolic performance. We measure regional RV performance using MRI with 1-dimensional myocardial tissue tagging. By tagging cine-MRI in two views, we measured regional shortening in 12 regions throughout the RV. We image 32 ...

INTRODUCTION: The Doppler index of overall left ventricular (LV) myocardial performance--the Tei index--has been shown to be a reliable indicator of all changes in LV systolic dysfunction, retaining an inverse relationship with the ejection fraction. The aim of this study was to examine the corresponding behaviour in relation to LV ...

OBJECTIVES: This study was performed to determine the after-effects of pharmacologic stress (adenosine) on left ventricular (LV) function-end-diastolic volume (EDV), end-systolic volume (ESV), and ejection fraction (LVEF)-with Tl-201 and Tc-99m MIBI SPECT. METHODS: A total of 263 patients were grouped according to the time interval between isotope injection and imaging. ...

BACKGROUND: The ultrasonic industry has recently produced echocardiographic Hand Held Devices (miniaturized, compact and battery-equipped echocardiographic systems). Their potential usefulness has been successfully assessed in a wide range of clinical conditions. The aim of the study was to verify if the routine use of a basic model of echocardiographic Hand ...

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study is to determine systolic and diastolic velocity profiles of the left and right ventricles by tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) and to reveal the associations between TDI parameters and early atherosclerotic changes in adult hypopituitary patients with GH deficiency. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The study group ...

In 100 patients with hypopituitarism and 80 sex- and age-matched healthy subjects, we correlated the severity of cardiac impairment to the severity of GH deficiency (GHD). By the GH peak after arginine plus GHRH test (normal > 16.5 microg/liter), the patients were classified as severe GHD (n = 56), partial ...

AIM: In this pioneer study, we aimed to evaluate the diagnostic role of reflected high-intensity motion signals (RIMS) in the assessment of left ventricular (LV) systolic and diastolic function and to analyze the reproducibility of RIMS. RIMS are also known under the name of "spectral Doppler artifacts" and to date ...

The quantification of ventricular dyssynchrony is a key factor in identifying patients with severe heart failure who may benefit from cardiac resynchronisation with biventricular pacing (BVP). Echocardiographic techniques appear to offer superior sensitivity and specificity than the ECG in selecting these patients. This paper reviews the scope of current echocardiographic ...

This study sought the ability of strain rate imaging to detect subclinical left ventricular dysfunction, as evidenced by reduced contractile reserve (CR) in 32 asymptomatic patients with isolated severe mitral regurgitation. Compared with CR- patients (n = 10), CR+ patients (n = 22) had significantly higher end-systolic strain and peak ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess cardiac status in a large group of patients with thalassemia major who had been treated in a standard way since their early infancy with intensive transfusions and deferoxamine chelation therapy and who had good compliance with this regimen. METHODS AND RESULTS: We assessed clinically and echocardiographically 202 ...

In myotonic dystrophy type 2 (DM2/PROMM), cardiac muscle involvement is usually more benign than in DM1, but clinically severe cardiomyopathy has been reported in some patients. Using a novel method of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), we examined the left ventricular myocardium and the left gastrocnemius muscle in 11 unselected DM2/PROMM ...

BACKGROUND: Recent studies have suggested that a higher mobility of the fossa ovalis membrane (FOM) may be associated with an increased risk for stroke in patients with patent foramen ovale (PFO). The current study analyzed whether Doppler tissue echocardiography is useful for quantitation of FOM motion velocities. METHODS: FOM dynamics ...

INTRODUCTION: Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) is a powerful diagnostic tool for evaluating cardiac structure and function. Recently, right ventricular wall-motion abnormalities were described using electron beam tomography in patients with Brugada syndrome. In the present study, we prospectively evaluated CMR findings in patients with Brugada syndrome compared to matched ...

BACKGROUND: This study aimed at investigating the relative powers of the quantitative evaluation of functional mitral regurgitation (FMR) and ejection fraction (EF) in predicting the clinical changes and prognosis of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) with severe systolic dysfunction. METHODS: A total of 81 patients with DCM, EF < 0.40 and at ...

Although the mechanism of ischemic mitral regurgitation (MR) is understood, the echocardiographic picture of ischemic MR is not homogeneous. Ninety-two consecutive patients with chronic ischemic MR due to restricted motion were divided into two groups according to tethering pattern: the asymmetric group with predominant posterior tethering of both leaflets (54 ...

Although cardiac complications remain the main causes of death in thalassemic patients, right heart dysfunction has been little studied and the mechanism is still unclear. Echocardiography was performed in 39 patients with beta-thalassemia major and 35 aged-matched controls. The gender, age, heart rate, blood pressure, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), ...

INTRODUCTION: Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) has been shown to reverse left ventricular (LV) remodeling and improve symptoms in heart failure patients with wide QRS complexes; however, its role in patients with mildly prolonged QRS complexes is unclear. This study investigated if CRT benefited patients with mildly prolonged QRS complexes >120 ...

BACKGROUND: Some myocardial perfusion single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and radionuclide ventriculography studies have suggested that the presence of regional perfusion defects and diastolic abnormalities could have prognostic implications in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HC). The aim of this prospective study was to analyze the prognostic value of these ...

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular risk factors are a significant burden in end-stage renal disease patients under hemodialysis. Cardiovascular-related diseases are the leading cause of death among these patients and responsible for almost half of all deaths in dialysis patients. The influence of parathormone (PTH) on myocardial function as a toxin of uremia ...

BACKGROUND: Cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) are indicative of hemorrhage-prone microangiopathy and known to be closely associated with chronic hypertension. However, no studies have been undertaken on the association between left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy and the severity of CMB. METHODS: One hundred two consecutive stroke patients with hypertension were examined. CMBs were ...

Echocardiographic abnormalities in patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) were determined, and pulmonary arterial systolic pressure (PASP) was estimated. Clinical data and echocardiograms of 38 adult hospitalized patients with SCD at two tertiary care hospitals were reviewed. Fisher's exact test was performed to determine correlation between pulmonary hypertension and various ...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the utility of echocardiography in diagnosing double chambered right ventricle (DCRV) in adults. DESIGN: A retrospective study. SETTING: Department of Congenital Heart Diseases and Department of Cardiac Surgery, Institute of Cardiology, Warsaw, Poland. PATIENTS: 32 patients, mean age 32.5 years, 21 female, and 11 male. INTERVENTION: Transthoracic ...

OBJECTIVES: We sought to analyze the histologic findings of 30 patients with a diagnosis of arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD) based on established clinical and instrumental criteria, who did not have a family history of ARVD. BACKGROUND: The diagnostic role of endomyocardial biopsy (EMB) in patients with a clinical profile ...

The aim of this work was to evaluate a number of magnetocardiographic (MCG) indices in their predictive ability for left ventricular (LV) concentric remodeling. Twenty-five male patients affected by essential hypertension for no longer than 15 months and presenting signs of LV remodeling participated in the study; 25 normal men ...