Background: In recent decades, the growing incidence of patients with heart failure who have preserved systolic function, underlines the need to differentiate between heart failure due to diastolic dysfunction and that due to systolic dysfunction.
Objective: To develop a prediction profile of clinical parameters that enables clinicians to differentiate between patients with systolic and diastolic heart failure.
Methods: 164 patients admitted for congestive heart failure to the cardiology department of an academic tertiary care hospital, whose left ventricular systolic and diastolic function had been evaluated echocardiographically and who satisfied the Framingham criteria for heart failure, were prospectively recruited.
Objective: To determine the validity and clinical usefulness of clinical criteria in the diagnosis of systolic and diastolic heart failure.
Design: Cross-sectional diagnostic study.
Methods: 216 patients admitted consecutively to the cardiology section of an academic hospital with a suspected diagnosis of heart failure in a period of 12 months.
Lytic and blastic lesions have been associated to malignant tumours, such as solid cancer (breast cancer, renal cancer, prostate cancer, malignant melanoma or thyroid tumours). Although a mixed pattern with lytic and blastic lesions is due to metastatic tumour, this is not the only possible origin. The following case shows a systematic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objective: To assess the presence of insulin resistance in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients receiving long-term antiretroviral therapy.
Patients And Method: Cross-sectional study in consecutive HIV-infected patients treated with regimens containing efavirenz, lopinavir/ritonavir or atazanavir. Insulin resistance was assessed by HOMA (Homeostasis Model Assessment).
There is little information on infections caused by larval cestodes in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in developed countries. Two infections by larval cestodes were found in 714 HIV-infected patients studied from 1998 to 2004 at the Hospital General Universitario de Elche in Spain (Mediterranean Coast). The first patient was a Colombian immigrant diagnosed as having neurocysticercosis, and subsequently found to have HIV infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objective: The objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence and characteristics of the metabolic syndrome in patients with HIV infection from a Mediterranean cohort.
Patients And Method: Cross-sectional study performed in consecutive HIV-infected patients attended in an outpatient's HIV clinic at the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Metabolic syndrome was defined according to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) new diagnostic criteria.
Severe pulmonary hypertension (PH) mimicking idiopathic PH is an increasingly recognized complication of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. PH shares several histopathologic features with Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), the most common malignancy in AIDS patients, and molecular evidence of the vasculotropic Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus or human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) has been found in the lung tissue of patients with the disease. Although the prevalence of HHV-8 infection is increased among HIV-infected patients, no clinical association between KS and PH has ever been reported.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To determine the population-based incidence of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in adults and to assess the relative importance of age and gender on the incidence of infections caused by different microbial pathogens.
Methods: A two-year prospective study in a well-defined geographic area of the Spanish Mediterranean coast.
Results: The overall incidence rate of CAP was 12 cases (95% CI 11.
Background: Data on long-term central nervous system (CNS) toxicity associated with efavirenz therapy are scarce, and risk factors remain largely unknown. We aimed to determine whether monitoring the plasma concentration of efavirenz could predict neuropsychiatric adverse events associated with long-term therapy with efavirenz.
Methods: We performed a longitudinal study involving 17 consecutive human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected subjects with virological suppression after at least 6 months of antiretroviral therapy with an efavirenz-containing regimen.
Objective: To determine whether an association existed between lopinavir (LPV) plasma concentrations and changes in body fat composition.
Design: A prospective, non-randomized study.
Setting: HIV clinic of a University Hospital.
Background And Objective: After the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), there was a decrease in hospital admissions and mortality associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. The objective of this study was to analyze the changes in mortality and morbidity during the HAART era.
Patients And Method: We reviewed 1,343 hospital admissions from 610 HIV-infected patients between January 1995 and December 2000.
Objective: To determine whether an association existed between lopinavir (LPV) plasma concentrations and changes in lipid levels.
Design: A prospective, nonrandomized study.
Subjects: HIV-infected subjects with virologic failure on protease inhibitor-containing regimens.
Disulfiram is widely used in the treatment of chronic alcoholism. Adverse drug reactions with fatal outcome following disulfiram therapy are infrequent, and hepatic failure accounts for most of them. Since disulfiram is a cytochrome P450 (CYP450) enzyme system inhibitor, numerous interactions with several drugs metabolized in the liver have been reported.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: When blood pressure (BP)-lowering efficacy is assessed by measurements taken in a clinic setting, angiotensin II-receptor antagonists show similar efficacy to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and better tolerability. A search of MEDLINE to date, however, reveals no randomized, double-blind studies using ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) to compare the BP-lowering efficacy of irbesartan and enalapril in a large number of patients ( > 200) with essential hypertension.
Objective: This study compared 24-hour BP reduction and BP control, as assessed by ABPM, in patients with mild to moderate essential hypertension treated with irbesartan or enalapril.