Brain-heart interaction in takotsubo cardiomyopathy.

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is classically stress induced and characterized by regional wall motion abnormalities in the absence of coronary occlusion. It predominantly affects postmenopausal women; emotional and physical stressors can trigger the classic cardiomyopathic findings. These changes are likely mediated by catecholamines, which cause a distinctive pattern of ventricular dysfunction with a unique pathologic phenotype of apical ballooning.

Diagnosis, management, and future developments of fibromuscular dysplasia.

Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD) is a nonatherosclerotic noninflammatory vascular disease that primarily affects women from age 20 to 60, but may also occur in infants and children, men, and the elderly. It most commonly affects the renal and carotid arteries but has been observed in almost every artery in the body. FMD has been considered rare and thus is often underdiagnosed and poorly understood by many health care providers.

Peripheral artery disease: current insight into the disease and its diagnosis and management.

Peripheral artery disease (PAD), which comprises atherosclerosis of the abdominal aorta, iliac, and lower-extremity arteries, is underdiagnosed, undertreated, and poorly understood by the medical community. Patients with PAD may experience a multitude of problems, such as claudication, ischemic rest pain, ischemic ulcerations, repeated hospitalizations, revascularizations, and limb loss. This may lead to a poor quality of life and a high rate of depression.

Does medical therapy for thoracic aortic aneurysms really work? Are beta-blockers truly indicated? CON.

Thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAA) often represent the final manifestation of hereditary or degenerative disease processes. TAA are primarily caused by age-related degenerative changes. In this article, the authors highlight the most common pathophysiologic mechanisms responsible for TAA formation and review the paucity of evidence supporting the spectrum of medical therapies for TAA other than renin-angiotensin inhibition.

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy.

Background: Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a novel, yet well-described, reversible cardiomyopathy triggered by profound psychological or physical stress with a female predominance.

Objective: This review is designed to increase general clinician awareness about the diagnosis, incidence, pathogenesis, and therapies of this entity.

Data Sources: A complete search of multiple electronic databases (Pubmed, EMBASE, Science Citation Index) was carried out to identify all full-text, English-language articles published from 1980 to the present date and relevant to this review.

Recurrent orthostatic global amnesia in a patient with postoperative hyperfibrinogenemia.

Transient global amnesia (TGA) is characterized by sudden, temporary dysfunction of antegrade and recent retrograde memory without other neurologic deficits. Although there is sometimes a precipitating event, the origin of TGA remains controversial. We encountered a patient who developed recurrent TGA when upright, in whom the symptom promptly and regularly resolved when supine.

Newly emerging concepts in blood vessel growth: recent discovery of endothelial progenitor cells and their function in tissue regeneration.

It has recently been established that bone marrow-derived endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are recruited to the systemic circulation and, in response to various cytokines, pharmacologic agents, and/or tissue ischemia, incorporate into sites of new blood vessel growth (neovascularization). These findings have changed our understanding of adult neovascularization by demonstrating that both preexisting endothelial cells and EPCs contribute to blood vessel formation during adult life. The following review article highlights the discovery of EPCs, their relationship to various clinical diseases, and their therapeutic potential for augmenting blood vessel formation.