Endocarditis in Adult Congenital Heart Disease Patients: Prevention, Recognition, and Management.

Purpose Of Review: Present an updated overview of the prevention, diagnosis, and management of infective endocarditis in adult patients with congenital heart disease.

Recent Findings: Care for patients with infective endocarditis is changing in the areas of specialized teams, diagnostics, and prevention. Endocarditis teams should be involved in the care of ACHD patients.

Alternative molecular mechanisms for force transmission at adherens junctions via β-catenin-vinculin interaction.

Force transmission through adherens junctions (AJs) is crucial for multicellular organization, wound healing and tissue regeneration. Recent studies shed light on the molecular mechanisms of mechanotransduction at the AJs. However, the canonical model fails to explain force transmission when essential proteins of the mechanotransduction module are mutated or missing.

Thoracic Stent Grafts Induce Persistent Aortic Remodeling in Aortic Coarctation.

Background: This study's objective is to describe outcomes of adult patients who underwent thoracic stent graft placement treatment for primary or recurrent aortic coarctation.

Methods: This is a retrospective study of 30 adult patients who underwent thoracic stent graft placement for aortic coarctation at our institution. Average age was 46.

Percutaneous Balloon Dilation of the Pulmonary Valve in a 79-Year-Old With Congenital Pulmonary Valve Stenosis.

• Congenital valvar PS is a rare cause of heart failure in the geriatric population. • Transcatheter PV dilation is an effective treatment of congenital PS in older adults. • Cardiac CT can be very useful in the evaluation of suspected valvar PS in adults.

Left Ventricular Pseudoaneurysm in an Adult With a Repaired Partial Atrioventricular Canal Defect.

• LV pseudoaneurysm formation is rare after congenital heart disease repair. • Conservative management of LV pseudoaneurysm was successful in this unique case. • CCT and 3D printing are valuable in the characterization of LV pseudoaneurysm.

"NASCI case of the month: left ventricular apical hypoplasia".

Left ventricular apical hypoplasia is a rare congenital condition. It can cause nonspecific symptoms and can be accompanied by cardiac conduction system alterations such as bundle branch block, atrial flutter (AF) or atrial fibrillation. The diagnosis mostly is made by imaging.

Integrating a Virtual ICU with Cardiac and Cardiovascular ICUs: Managing the Needs of a Complex and High-Acuity Specialty ICU Cohort.

A long-standing shortage of critical care intensivists and nurses, exacerbated by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, has led to an accelerated adoption of tele-critical care in the United States (US). Due to their complex and high-acuity nature, cardiac, cardiovascular, and cardiothoracic intensive care units (ICUs) have generally been limited in their ability to leverage tele-critical care resources. In early 2020, Houston Methodist Hospital (HMH) launched its tele-critical care program called Virtual ICU, or vICU, to improve its ICU staffing efficiency while providing high-quality, continuous access to in-person and virtual intensivists and critical care nurses.

A Year of Critical Care: The Changing Face of the ICU During COVID-19.

During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, admissions to hospital intensive care units (ICUs) surged, exerting unprecedented stress on ICU resources and operations. The novelty of the highly infectious coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) required significant changes to the way critically ill patients were managed. Houston Methodist's incident command center team navigated this health crisis by ramping up its bed capacity, streamlining treatment algorithms, and optimizing ICU staffing while ensuring adequate supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, and other ICU essentials.

Body mass index and age are associated with ventricular end-diastolic pressure in adults with a Fontan circulation.

Introduction: Systemic ventricular end-diastolic pressure is an important haemodynamic variable in adult patients with Fontan circulation. Risk factors associated with elevated end-diastolic pressure have not been clearly identified in this population.

Methods: All patients > 18 years with Fontan circulation who underwent cardiac catheterisation at our centre between 1/08 and 3/19 were included.

RSNA-STR-ACR Consensus Statement for COVID-19 CT Patterns: Interreader Agreement in 240 Consecutive Patients and Association With RT-PCR Status.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to study interreader agreement of the RSNA-STR-ACR (Radiological Society of North America/Society of Thoracic Radiology/American College of Radiology) consensus statement on reporting chest computed tomography (CT) findings related to COVID-19 on a sample of consecutive patients confirmed with reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.

Materials And Methods: This institutional review board-approved retrospective study included 240 cases with a mean age of 47.6 ± 15.

Clinico-Environmental System for Personal Monitoring.

The ever-growing use of information and communication technologies in the past decades and the proliferation of mobile devices for monitoring vital signs and physical activity is enhancing the emergence of a new healthcare paradigm. More recently, citizens are becoming more sensible to the necessity of monitoring environmental health indicators and to its direct impact on personal health. This article proposes and describes the development of a clinico-environmental system for personal monitoring.

Learning to Read for Spanish-Speaking Deaf Children With and Without Cochlear Implants: The Role of Phonological and Orthographic Representation.

The authors examined the relationship between cochlear implants (CIs) and reading acquisition and attempted to determine the part played by phonological and orthographic resources in this task. Four groups of Spanish-speaking deaf children were examined: children with either early- or late-implanted CIs, and children without CIs who had either moderate or profound hearing loss. A hearing group was included to control for age and reading level.

Are beta-blockers effective in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction?

Beta-blockers constitute standard therapy for heart failure with reduced ejection. However, their role in patients with preserved ejection fraction is not clear. Searching in Epistemonikos database, which is maintained by screening multiple databases, we identified four systematic reviews covering 19 primary studies, including seven randomized trials answering the question of this summary.

Epipericardial Fat Necrosis: Sonographic Findings and Their Correlation With Computed Tomography.

Epipericardial fat necrosis is a rare cause of chest pain. It presents as pleuritic pain in an otherwise healthy patient. Computed tomography has proved to be the most effective diagnostic imaging technique because of its ability to reveal typical alterations in the cardiophrenic space.

Altered functional connectivity of the default mode network in Williams syndrome: a multimodal approach.

Resting state brain networks are implicated in a variety of relevant brain functions. Importantly, abnormal patterns of functional connectivity (FC) have been reported in several neurodevelopmental disorders. In particular, the Default Mode Network (DMN) has been found to be associated with social cognition.

How Do Deaf Children With and Without Cochlear Implants Manage to Read Sentences: The Key Word Strategy.

The aim of this study is to examine the mechanisms used by deaf children with and without cochlear implants (CIs) to read sentences and the linguistic bases (vocabulary and syntax) underlying those reading mechanisms. Previous studies have shown that deaf persons read sentences using the key word strategy (KWS), which consists of identifying some frequent content words and ignoring the function words. The present results show that deaf children, including those wearing CIs from an early age, do use the KWS.

Nonexercise activity thermogenesis in obesity management.

Obesity is linked to cardiovascular disease. The global increase in sedentary lifestyle is an important factor contributing to the rising prevalence of the obesity epidemic. Traditionally, counseling has focused on moderate- to vigorous-intensity exercise, with disappointing results.

Hypoplasia, pseudocoarctation and coarctation of the aorta - a systematic review.

Aortic arch abnormalities are uncommon and may be seen in association with other congenital cardiac anomalies. Coarctation, pseudocoarctation and hypoplastic aortic arch are known aortic arch abnormalities, with the former being well studied, whilst for the latter two, much less is known. There are similarities and differences that are important to distinguish among these three conditions in order to avoid errors in diagnosis that may result in unnecessary investigations, which may in turn result in physical or emotional harm to the patient.

Analysis of reading strategies in deaf adults as a function of their language and meta-phonological skills.

The first aim of this study was to examine the mechanisms used in reading sentences by deaf adults who had completed secondary or higher education. Previous data allowed us to hypothesize that they used the key word strategy, consisting of identifying (some of) the frequent content words, and deriving an overall representation of the sentence's meaning ignoring the function words. The results supported the hypothesis.

Interferon-α and pericardial injury: a case report and literature review.

Interferon- α (IFN-α) alone or in combination with other chemotherapeutic agents has been used in the management of many malignant and non-malignant conditions. Pericarditis with or without pericardial effusion has been reported with IFN-α therapy, and available literature is limited to case reports. Pericardial constriction after interferon use has not been described in the published literature to date.

Papillary fibroelastoma of the pulmonary valve--a systematic review.

The pulmonary valve is the least affected site for valvular papillary fibroelastoma. With increasing use of routine echocardiography and other modalities of imaging, pulmonary valve papillary fibroelastomas (PVPFE) are being recognized more frequently. PVPFE is more often an incidental diagnosis and symptomatic patients usually present with shortness of breath.