Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was first identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Since then, the disease has spread globally, leading to the ongoing pandemic. It can cause severe respiratory illness; however, many cases of pericarditis have also been reported.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are the first-line treatment for patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Serositis, including pleural and pericardial effusions, is a frequent adverse event with some TKIs while less frequent with others. We present a case of a 76-year-old woman with CML on nilotinib who presented with progressive fatigue and was eventually found to have cardiac tamponade from a large pericardial effusion attributed to nilotinib.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To compare multiple-procedure catheter ablation outcomes of a stepwise approach versus left atrial posterior wall isolation (LA PWI) in patients undergoing nonparoxysmal atrial fibrillation (NPAF) ablation.
Background: Unfavorable outcomes for stepwise ablation of NPAF in large clinical trials may be attributable to proarrhythmic effects of incomplete ablation lines. It is unknown if a more extensive initial ablation strategy results in improved outcomes following multiple ablation procedures.
Background: Humanistic care in medicine has shown to improve healthcare outcomes. Language barriers are a significant obstacle to humanistic care, and trained medical interpreters have demonstrated to effectively bridge the gap for the vulnerable limited English proficiency (LEP) patient population. One way in which medical schools can train more humanistic physicians and provide language access is through the implementation of programs to train bilingual medical students as medical interpreters.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite its widespread clinical use, the β-adrenergic receptor antagonist esmolol hydrochloride is not commonly used in human physiology research, and the effective dose of esmolol (compared with the nonselective β-blocker propranolol) is unclear. In four separate studies we used cycle ergometry exercise and infusions of isoproterenol and epinephrine to test the heart rate (HR)-lowering effect of esmolol compared with propranolol and saline in healthy humans. In , both esmolol (ΔHR 57 ± 6 beats/min) and propranolol (ΔHR 56 ± 7 beats/min) attenuated exercise tachycardia compared with saline (ΔHR 88 ± 17 beats/min).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMyocardial oxygen supply and demand mismatch is fundamental to the pathophysiology of ischemia and infarction. The sympathetic nervous system, through α-adrenergic receptors and β-adrenergic receptors, influences both myocardial oxygen supply and demand. In animal models, mechanistic studies have established that adrenergic receptors contribute to coronary vascular tone.
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