Publications by authors named "Clarissa Pena"

Even with comparable healthcare structure and staffing, patients presenting on weekends often face poorer outcomes, including longer wait times in the emergency department, extended hospital stays, and delays in major procedures. This discrepancy prompts questions about whether life-saving cardiac procedures, such as permanent pacemaker (PPM) implantation for atrioventricular block, also experience similar delays and differences in outcomes. We researched over 200,000 patients from the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database to help study whether patients admitted on the weekend truly had worse outcomes than patients admitted on the weekday.

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Orthostatic intolerance is a broad term that represents a spectrum of dysautonomic disorders, including postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and orthostatic hypotension (OH), as manifestations of severe autonomic failure. While the etiology of orthostatic intolerance has not yet fully been uncovered, it has been associated with multiple underlying pathological processes, including peripheral neuropathy, altered renin-aldosterone levels, hypovolemia, and autoimmune processes. Studies have implicated adrenergic, cholinergic, and angiotensin II type I autoantibodies in the pathogenesis of orthostatic intolerance.

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Introduction: Significant progress has been made in the management of patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) during the past few decades. However, the role of direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) in post-ACS prophylactic therapy remains unknown. This study aims to assess the efficacy and safety of DOACs plus antiplatelet treatment (APT) after ACS.

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Background: Cardiovascular disease, particularly acute coronary syndromes (ACS), is the leading cause of death in the United States. Minor fluctuations in hospital admissions for different conditions, including ACS, can be seen throughout the year. This study focuses on the impact of admission month on outcomes of acute coronary syndromes during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Background: Commotio cordis is an event in which a blunt, non-penetrating blow to the chest occurs, triggering a life-threatening arrhythmia and often sudden death. This phenomenon is often seen in young, male athletes and has become increasingly well-known over the past few decades. We present a unique case in which ventricular fibrillation occurs in an older male athlete after blunt trauma.

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Hematopoietic development involves the coordinated activity of differentiation and cell cycle regulators. In current models of mammalian cell cycle control, E2f activators (E2f1, E2f2, and E2f3) are portrayed as the ultimate transcriptional effectors that commit cells to enter and progress through S phase. Using conditional gene knock-out strategies, we show that E2f1-3 are not required for the proliferation of early myeloid progenitors.

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