Updated Blood Pressure Guidelines: Implications for Athletes.

Purpose Of Review: To review the prevalence, short- and long-term impact of exercise on blood pressure, and the evaluation and treatment of hypertension in competitive athletes.

Recent Findings: Due, in part, to inconsistencies in measurement and the definitions used, the true prevalence of hypertension is unknown as reports range from 0 to 83%. With recent changes in the blood pressure guidelines, the proportion of athletes that meet criteria for elevated blood pressure or stage 1 hypertension has increased dramatically with over one-third of collegiate and professional athletes meeting criteria for hypertension.

Interrater reproducibility of the 2016 American society of echocardiography left ventricular diastolic function guidelines.

Background: Little data exist regarding interreader variability of diastolic measurements and their application by the 2016 American Society of Echocardiography left ventricular (LV) diastolic function guidelines.

Methods: Volunteers (n = 49) were recruited from an outpatient cardiology practice. The presence and grade of diastology dysfunction (DD) was determined by the 2016 LV diastology guideline algorithm.

Echocardiographic predictors of intraoperative right ventricular dysfunction: a 2D and speckle tracking echocardiography study.

Background: Intraoperative or post procedure right ventricular (RV) dysfunction confers a poor prognosis in the post-operative period. Conventional predictors for RV function are limited due the effect of cardiac surgery on traditional RV indices; novel echocardiographic techniques hold the promise to improve RV functional stratification.

Methods: Comprehensive echocardiographic data were collected prospectively during elective cardiac surgery.

Tissue-based markers of right ventricular dysfunction in ischemic mitral regurgitation assessed via stress cardiac magnetic resonance and three-dimensional echocardiography.

Ischemic mitral regurgitation (iMR) augments risk for right ventricular dysfunction (RV). Right and left ventricular (LV) function are linked via common coronary perfusion, but data is lacking regarding impact of LV ischemia and infarct transmurality-as well as altered preload and afterload-on RV performance. In this prospective multimodality imaging study, stress CMR and 3-dimensional echo (3D-echo) were performed concomitantly in patients with iMR.

Multimodality Imaging of the Right Ventricle.

Right ventricular (RV) structure and function is clinically important in a wide range of conditions. While conventional echocardiography (echo) methods are widely used, its limitations in RV assessment due its complex geometry are well recognized. New applications of traditional echo methods as well as emerging echo techniques including 3-dimensional (3D) echo and speckle tracking strain have the potential to overcome limitations of conventional echo, though widespread clinical use remains to be seen.

Regional hippocampal damage in heart failure.

Aims: Heart failure (HF) patients show cognitive and mood impairments, including short-term memory loss and depression, that have an adverse impacting on quality of life and self-care management. Brain regions, including the hippocampus, a structure significantly involved in memory and mood, show injury in HF, but the integrity of specific hippocampal subregions is unclear.

Methods And Results: To assess regional hippocampal volume loss, we evaluated 17 HF patients (mean age ± SD, 54.

TACE-dependent TGFα shedding drives triple-negative breast cancer cell invasion.

The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is frequently expressed in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and is a marker of poor prognosis in this patient population. Because activating mutations in this kinase are very rare events in breast cancer, we screened breast tumor gene expression profiles to examine the distribution of EGFR ligand expression. Of the six known EGFR ligands, transforming growth factor alpha (TGFα) was expressed more highly in triple-negative breast tumors than in tumors of other subtypes.