In this study, we reviewed a 15-year experience with the treatment of a severe sequela of cardiac surgery: post-sternotomy mediastinitis. We compared the outcomes of conventional treatment with those of negative-pressure wound therapy, focusing on mortality rate, sternal reinfection, and length of hospital stay.We reviewed data on 157 consecutive patients ...

High salt intake is linked to hypertension whereas a restriction of dietary salt lowers blood pressure (BP). Substituting potassium and/or magnesium salts for sodium chloride (NaCl) may enhance the feasibility of salt restriction and lower blood pressure beyond the sodium reduction alone. The aim of this study was to determine ...

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is characterized by repetitive episodes of complete or partial obstruction of the upper airway during sleep that lead to an increase in airway resistance and respiratory effort. This may produce oxygen desaturation, hypercapnia and central nervous system arousal that restore airflow. OSA is associated with hemodynamic ...

Adverse hemodynamic effects with severe bradycardia have been previously reported during positive pressure insufflation of the right thoracic cavity in humans. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of asystole during thoracoscopic surgery with positive pressure insufflation. A 63-year-old Caucasian woman developed asystole at the onset ...

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of uncinectomy without sinusotomy and natural ostial dilatation on maxillary sinus ventilation in chronic rhinosinusitis. Twenty patients with chronic rhinosinusitis were included in this study. The patients were randomly divided into two groups. Group 1 consisted of patients with uncinectomy ...

Abstract Aims. The purpose of the present study was to compare the costs of home blood pressure (BP) telemonitoring (HBPM) with the costs of conventional office BP monitoring. In a randomized controlled trial, 105 hypertensive patients performed HBPM and 118 patients received usual care with conventional office BP monitoring during ...

To study the effect of leisure-time physical activity on the progression of carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) in the early stage of hypertension. We studied 47 sedentary and 40 physically active young pre-hypertensive or stage 1 hypertensive subjects. IMT was assessed in the common carotid artery, carotid bulb and internal carotid ...

Diagnostic accuracy studies of neuromonitoring devices during carotid endarterectomy in awake patients are limited by the question of the transferability to anesthetized patients. This study was designed to compare the different neuromonitoring parameters in patients under regional and general anesthesia with stump pressure as the primary endpoint and the courses ...

Essential amino acid tryptophan (Trp) is mainly catabolized by indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase, which leads to the formation of kynurenine (Kyn). In this study, we reexamined whether an increased indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase activity, as estimated by the Kyn/Trp ratio (μM/mM), is associated with atherosclerotic parameters in hemodialysis (HD) patients. Serum Trp and Kyn ...

This study aimed to characterize the role played by baroreceptors and chemoreceptors in the hypertensive response to bilateral carotid occlusion (BCO) in conscious C57BL mice. On the day before the experiments the animals were implanted with pneumatic cuffs around their common carotid arteries and a femoral catheter for measurement of ...

Present study investigated the effects of isoproterenol-induced oxidative stress on hemodynamic and ventricular functions in rats. Subcutaneous injections of isoproterenol (85 mg/kg for two consecutive days at 24 h interval) significantly decreased myocardial antioxidant enzymes; superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase in heart. Isoproterenol-induced oxidative stress was also evidenced by significant depletion ...

The relationship between HbA(1c), blood pressure, and carotid atherosclerosis in nondiabetic patients is not clear. HbA(1c) and blood pressure can affect carotid-artery atherosclerosis in nondiabetic patients. This retrospective cross-sectional study included 216 patients without diabetes mellitus. A positive carotid ultrasonographic result was defined as intima-media thickness of the common carotid ...

Measures of vascular health are known to be important predictors of cardiovascular disease in adulthood. The reliability of commonly used measures of vascular health has been demonstrated in school-aged children, adolescents, and adults; however, their reliability in preschool-aged children remains to be determined. Twenty 2- to 6-year-old children participated in ...

We determined the sympathetic and parasympathetic control of heart rate (HR) and the sensitivity of the cardiopulmonary receptors after selective carotid and aortic denervation. We also investigated the participation of the autonomic nervous system in the Bezold-Jarish reflex after selective removal of aortic and carotid baroreceptors. Male Wistar rats (220-270 ...

BACKGROUND: Carotid endarterectomy is subject to a significant risk of intraoperative stroke. Anesthetic management of patients must provide optimal monitoring of cerebral blood perfusion to establish whether intraluminal carotid shunting is necessary. Cerebral oximetry (regional cerebral oxygen saturation, rSO2) measurement can ascertain whether brain perfusion is adequate. During carotid cross-clamping, ...

Hypertension is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Despite the development of new medications, an alarmingly high proportion of patients are not reaching their target blood pressure goals, so nonpharmacologic therapies have been attracting more interest. Chronic baroreceptor stimulation of the carotid sinus has been shown to reduce ...

OBJECTIVES: To assess subclinical atherosclerosis in subtypes of hypertension using lipid profile as a biomarker and B mode ultrasonography of the carotid arteries. METHODS: Ninety-six subjects (49 females and 47 males) aged 42-78 years were recruited from the vascular Doppler unit at Baghdad Teaching Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq from January to ...

Electrical activation of the carotid baroreceptor system is an attractive therapy for the treatment of resistant hypertension. In the past, several attempts were made to directly activate the baroreceptor system in humans, but the method had to be restricted to a few selected patients. Adverse effects, the need for better ...

OBJECTIVE: This study compares internal carotid artery (ICA) mean stump pressures (SPs) with cerebral oximetry monitoring during carotid endarterectomy (CEA). METHODS: A total of 104 consecutive patients undergoing CEA under general anesthesia (GA) during a 10-month period were prospectively evaluated. Baseline and postcarotid clamp regional cerebral oxygen saturation (rSO(2)) and ...

Though many consider the magnitude of respiratory sinus arrhythmia as an index of cardiac vagal control, its physiological origins remain unclear. One influential model postulates that the systolic pressure rise within a given beat stimulates the baroreflex arc to adjust the following heart period such that diastolic pressure is "stabilized" ...

To examine the relationship between systolic blood pressure and progression of carotid intima-media thickness in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), we studied 3364 patients from a community-based cohort of elderly individuals of whom 724 had CKD defined as creatinine clearances of stage 3 or less. The contribution of systolic ...

Cardio-respiratory effects of intravenous injection of somatostatin were investigated in anaesthetized, spontaneously breathing rats that were: (i) neurally intact and subsequently bilaterally vagotomized in the neck, or (ii) midcervically vagotomized with later vagotomized at the supranodosal level, or (iii) midcervically vagotomized and subjected to section of the carotid sinus nerves ...

A high red blood cell distribution width (RDW) may be associated with adverse outcomes in patients with heart failure and risk of death, and cardiovascular events in people with previous myocardial infarction. Ultrasound detection of carotid plaque helps to identify asymptomatic patients with advanced subclinical atherosclerosis, which can predict risk ...

The aim of the study was to investigate the changes of the common carotid local hemodynamic factors like wall shear stress and tensile forces in 16 patients with chronic unilateral cerebral infarctions (CUCI), 58 patients with risk factors (RF) for cerebrovascular disease (CVD) and 25 healthy control subjects. The blood ...

Objective: Transitioning from a bottle to open cup drinking can be a lengthy process in typical development. Children are often introduced to training cups during this period. Due to a lack of standardization in commercially available training cups, differences in design and performance characteristics may potentially create medical complications in ...

Hypertension is a multifactorial disease associated with significant morbidity. Increased sympathetic nervous system activity has been noted as an important etiologic factor and is, in part, regulated by afferent input arising from arterial and cardiopulmonary baroreceptors, activation of which causes inhibition of sympathetic output. It was thought for many years ...

The challenge in acute stroke is still to reperfuse as early as possible the ischemic territory. Since fibrinolytic therapies have a limited window with potential risk of bleeding, having a nonpharmacologic mean to recruit vessels in area surrounding necrosis might be useful. We propose here to use antigravity suit inflated ...

Hypotension is frequently reported during hemodialysis. This study aimed to examine the effect of the intermittent pneumatic circulator on blood pressure during hemodialysis. Sixteen subjects with chronic hemodialysis were recruited. Each subject randomly received two test conditions on separate days, hemodialysis with and without the circulator. The circulator was applied ...

Arterial baroreceptors provide a neural sensory input that reflexly regulates the autonomic drive of circulation. Our goal was to test the hypothesis that a member of the acid-sensing ion channel (ASIC) subfamily of the DEG/ENaC superfamily is an important determinant of the arterial baroreceptor reflex. We found that aortic baroreceptor ...

The reflex that provides rapid neural control of blood pressure is triggered by an unknown molecular pressure sensor. ASIC2, an ion channel in a family that includes a mechanosensor from C. elegans, is shown by Lu et al. in this issue of Neuron to be critical for this reflex in ...

Specimens of intact wall tubes of human common carotid arteries (CCA), internal carotid arteries (ICA) (n = 11, age 77.6 yr, SD 6.3), and related adventitia and media-intima tubes are mechanically examined. Cyclic, quasi-static extension-inflation tests at different axial stretches are performed on preconditioned tube specimens. Stress-free configurations show significant ...

Our previous study demonstrated that selective carotid baroreceptors activation decreases airway resistance. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of carotid baroreceptor inactivation on the reflex change of respiratory resistance. Twenty healthy men aged between 20 and 25 were included in the study. Selective inactivation of ...

BACKGROUND: There is paucity of research looking at variations in carotid artery intima-media thickness (CIMT) during the cardiac cycle in children. The aim of this study was to ascertain variations, if any, in CIMT during the cardiac cycle in a population of high-risk children. METHODS: Forty-nine children aged 6 to ...

Resistant hypertension is defined as hypertension that remains above 140/90 mmHg despite the provision of three or more antihypertensive drugs in a rational combination at full doses and including a diuretic. It is associated with adverse clinical outcome and therefore requires aggressive medical treatment. We present a case of 70-year-old ...

We have studied the effect of pressure on the anomalous lattice striction, both in the ab-plane and along the c-axis, of (La,Pr)(1.2)Sr(1.8)Mn(2)O(7) single crystals over the temperature region where the paramagnetic insulator to ferromagnetic metal transition takes place. We have examined the temperature dependence of the resistivity and the magnetization ...

Arteries experience marked variations in blood pressure and flow during the cardiac cycle that can intensify during exercise, in disease, or with aging. Diverse observations increasingly suggest the importance of such pulsatility in arterial homeostasis and adaptations. We used a transverse aortic arch banding model to quantify chronic effects of ...

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have a disproportionate risk of cardiovascular disease. This study was designed to assess the association between two noninvasive measures of cardiovascular risk, pulse wave analysis (PWA), and carotid intima-media thickness (IMT), in a cohort of CKD patients enrolled in the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort ...

BACKGROUND: Endothelial dysfunction is considered the first stage in the development of atherosclerosis. Brachial artery flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) has been used to assess endothelial dysfunction. An impaired FMD response may reflect a vascular phenotype prone to atherosclerosis. The thickness of the common carotid intima-media (CIMT) as measured by ultrasound represents ...

Rb(2)ZnCl(4) in the normal phase (T = 308-313 K) has been studied under pressure by means of single-crystal x-ray diffraction up to 3.84 GPa and Raman spectroscopy up to 5.9 GPa. No pressure-induced phase transition has been observed but an orientational disorder of the tetrahedra is enhanced with the pressure. At the same ...

PURPOSE: To evaluate a novel surgical technique for flapless transcrestal elevation of the maxillary sinus floor via surgical templates using gel pressure. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Computed tomographic scans of fresh human cadaver maxillae and three-dimensional treatment planning software were used to design surgical templates. Access to the maxillary sinus was ...

Hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins) reduce cardiovascular events in hypertensive subjects, but their effect on carotid BP, pressure augmentation, and wave reflection is unknown. We compared the effect of atorvastatin with placebo in a substudy of the lipid-lowering arm of the Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial (ASCOT-LLA). Hypertensive patients (n=142; age=43 to ...

Vascular and baroreceptor abnormalities in 44 young males, mean age 21 years, comprising of offspring with (FH(+); n = 22) and without (FH(-); n = 22) hypertensive parents, were investigated. Peak forearm blood flow (FBF), which was defined as the highest blood flow obtained following reactive hyperaemia, was assessed using ...

Antihypertensive agents may differ in their effects on central systolic blood pressure, and this may contribute to treatment-related differences in cardiovascular outcomes. In a substudy of the Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcome Trial, we investigated whether directly measured carotid systolic blood pressure differed between people randomized to amlodipine- and atenolol-based therapies and ...

How blood flow and pressure to the giraffe's brain are regulated when drinking remains debated. We measured simultaneous blood flow, pressure, and cross-sectional area in the carotid artery and jugular vein of five anesthetized and spontaneously breathing giraffes. The giraffes were suspended in the upright position so that we could ...

This work was motivated by ostensibly contradictory results from different groups regarding the effect of pressure on the fragility of glycerol. We present new experimental data for an intermediate pressure regime showing that the fragility increases with pressure up to about 1.8 GPa, becoming invariant at higher pressures. There is no ...

Central-to-peripheral amplification of the pressure pulse leads to discrepancies between central and brachial blood pressures. This amplification depends on an individual's hemodynamic and (patho)physiological characteristics. The aim of this study was to assess the magnitude and correlates of central-to-peripheral amplification in the upper limb in a healthy, middle-aged population (the ...

First-principles pseudopotential calculations by means of the local density approximation (LDA) within density-functional theory (DFT) are carried out to investigate the negative pressure induced ferroelectric phase transition in rutile TiO(2) in the range of -25 to 25 GPa. The softening behavior of the A(2u)(TO) modes at the Γ point following the ...

We report on pressure effects on the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of the compound UGa(2). Using a mean field approximation, we were able to calculate the isothermal entropy change and the adiabatic temperature change. Neither the applied pressure nor the chemical substitution experiments within the ranges studied revealed a remarkable ...

OBJECTIVES: We investigated possible acute effects of mentholated versus nonmentholated cigarette smoking on vascular functions and left ventricular diastolic functions in otherwise healthy young smokers. STUDY DESIGN: The study included 20 otherwise healthy smokers (6 women, 14 men; mean age 25.6 years) and 22 healthy nonsmokers (12 women, 10 men; ...

This study explored the effects of tonic blood pressure on the association between baroreceptor cardiac reflex sensitivity and cognitive performance. Sixty female participants completed a mental arithmetic task. Baroreceptor reflex sensitivity was assessed using sequence analysis. An interaction was found, indicating that the relationship between baroreceptor reflex sensitivity and cognitive ...