Impact of polyvascular disease on baseline characteristics, management and mortality in acute myocardial infarction. The Alliance project.

Background: A substantial number of patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) have polyvascular disease (PolyVD), defined as cerebrovascular disease (CVD), peripheral arterial disease (PAD) or both.

Aim: To investigate the impact of PolyVD on baseline characteristics, management and outcomes.

Methods: The Alliance project is a multicentre, cross-sectional database of patients with myocardial infarction throughout France from 2000 to 2005.

Prevalence of sleep-disordered breathing in a 316-patient French cohort of stable congestive heart failure.

Background: Heart failure with systolic dysfunction occurs frequently. Studies in North America and Germany have shown a high prevalence of sleep-disordered breathing in patients with heart failure.

Aims: To assess the prevalence of sleep-disordered breathing and its associated risk factors in French patients with heart failure.

Echocardiographic evaluation of the mitral valve area before and after percutaneous mitral commissurotomy: the pressure half-time method revisited.

Background: Doppler pressure half-time (PHT) is widely used for mitral valve area (MVA) assessment but its accuracy has not been fully evaluated before and after percutaneous mitral commissurotomy (PMC) in a large series of patients.

Methods: In 120 patients with severe mitral stenosis, MVA(PHT) was prospectively evaluated before and 24 to 48 hours after PMC and compared with 2-dimensional planimetry (MVA(2D)) as a reference method.

Results: After PMC, MVA(2D) significantly increased (1.