Benefits and outcomes of a new multidisciplinary approach for the management and financing of sudden unexplained death cases in a forensic setting in Switzerland.

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is an important public health issue. In young persons aged between 1 and 40 years, most SCDs are caused by potentially inherited cardiac diseases, often not detectable during conventional medico-legal investigations and therefore termed as sudden unexplained deaths (SUD). In this study, we describe the implementation, feasibility and importance of a standardized procedure to investigate SUD cases within the forensic framework at the Zurich Institute of Forensic Medicine in Switzerland.

Effects of active commuting on health-related quality of life and sickness-related absence.

Increased physical activity is associated with numerous health benefits. This study investigated the effect of active commuting (walking and cycling to work) on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and absence days from work due to sickness in healthy working adults. In total, 73 participants (age: 46 ± 9 years), all working at a tertiary university hospital in Salzburg, Austria, were randomized into an intervention group (IG, n = 51) and a control group (CG, n = 22).

Myoglobin for Detection of High-Risk Patients with Acute Myocarditis.

There is an unmet need for accurate and practical screening to detect myocarditis. We sought to test the hypothesis that the extent of acute myocarditis, measured by late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR), can be estimated based on routine blood markers. A total of 44 patients were diagnosed with acute myocarditis and included in this study.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug use in acute myopericarditis: 12-month clinical follow-up.

Objective: Clinical data on the effect of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in myopericarditis are limited. Since NSAIDs are standard therapy in pericarditis, we retrospectively investigated their safety in myopericarditis.

Methods: In a retrospective case-control study, we identified 60 patients with myopericarditis from September 2010 to August 2017.

Impact of clinical presentation and presence of coronary sclerosis on long-term outcome of patients with non-obstructive coronary artery disease.

Background: Non-obstructive coronary artery disease (NOCAD) is a common finding on coronary angiography. Our goal was to evaluate the long-term prognosis of NOCAD patients with stable angina (SA).

Methods: The study cohort consisted of 7478 NOCAD patients with normal EF (≥ 50%), and SA who underwent coronary angiography between 1995 and 2012.

Cardiac Rehabilitation and Exercise Prescription in Symptomatic Patients with Non-Obstructive Coronary Artery Disease-a Systematic Review.

Purpose Of Review: Non-obstructive coronary artery disease (NOCAD) on coronary angiography is a common finding in patients with stable angina. Angina in NOCAD patients is thought to be caused by endothelial dysfunction of the epicardial coronary arteries and/or the microvasculature. Treatment is empiric, and 30% of patients remain symptomatic in spite of therapy.

Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Myocarditis Reveals Persistent Disease Activity Despite Normalization of Cardiac Enzymes and Inflammatory Parameters at 3-Month Follow-Up.

Background: There is a major unmet need to identify high-risk patients in myocarditis. Although decreasing cardiac and inflammatory markers are commonly interpreted as resolving myocarditis, this assumption has not been confirmed as of today. We sought to evaluate whether routine laboratory parameters at diagnosis predict dynamic of late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) as persistent LGE has been shown to be a risk marker in myocarditis.

Increased ventilatory response to carbon dioxide in COPD patients following vitamin C administration.

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have decreased ventilatory and cerebrovascular responses to hypercapnia. Antioxidants increase the ventilatory response to hypercapnia in healthy humans. Cerebral blood flow is an important determinant of carbon dioxide/hydrogen ion concentration at the central chemoreceptors and may be affected by antioxidants.

Cerebrovascular and ventilatory responses to acute isocapnic hypoxia in healthy aging and lung disease: effect of vitamin C.

Acute hypoxia increases cerebral blood flow (CBF) and ventilation (V̇e). It is unknown if these responses are impacted with normal aging, or in patients with enhanced oxidative stress, such as (COPD). The purpose of the study was to 1) investigate the effects of aging and COPD on the cerebrovascular and ventilatory responses to acute hypoxia, and 2) to assess the effect of vitamin C on these responses during hypoxia.

Telomere gap between granulocytes and lymphocytes is a determinant for hematopoetic progenitor cell impairment in patients with previous myocardial infarction.

Objective: We have previously demonstrated that ischemic cardiomyopathy is associated with selective impairment of progenitor cell function in the bone marrow and in the peripheral blood, which may contribute to an unfavorable left ventricular remodeling process.

Methods And Results: With this study, we intended to identify the influence of telomere length on bone marrow functionality in 50 patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) and previous myocardial infarction. Mean telomere length (mTL) was measured simultaneously in peripheral blood leukocytes and mononuclear bone marrow cells (BMC), using the flow-FISH method.

Selective functional exhaustion of hematopoietic progenitor cells in the bone marrow of patients with postinfarction heart failure.

Objectives: This study investigated whether reduced levels of circulating endothelial progenitors cells (EPCs) in chronic heart failure (CHF) are secondary to an exhaustion of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in the bone marrow or to reduced mobilization.

Background: Circulating EPCs presumably originate from bone marrow-derived HSC. Persistent mobilization of EPCs was shown to be associated with favorable left ventricular infarct remodeling processes.

The altered apoptotic pathways in cisplatin and etoposide-resistant melanoma cells are drug specific.

Apoptotic deficiency is one of the mechanisms leading to chemoresistance due to the potential of many chemotherapeutic drugs to induce apoptosis. We have examined drug-induced apoptosis in the chemosensitive human melanoma cell line MeWo, as well as in its resistant sublines, which were selected by continuous exposure to etoposide (MeWo(Eto1)) and cisplatin (MeWo(Cis1)). In former studies, activation of the mitochondrial pro-apoptotic pathway could not be demonstrated in etoposide-resistant cells after exposure to etoposide.