Electrocardiography: A Technologist's Guide to Interpretation.

The nuclear medicine technologist works with electrocardiography when performing cardiac stress testing and gated cardiac imaging and when monitoring critical patients. To enhance patient care, basic electrocardiogram interpretation skills and recognition of key arrhythmias are essential for the nuclear medicine technologist. This article provides insight into the anatomy of an electrocardiogram trace, covers basic electrocardiogram interpretation methods, and describes an example case typical in the nuclear medicine environment.

Phenotypic and functional changes in blood monocytes following adherence to endothelium.

Objective: Blood monocytes are known to express endothelial-like genes during co-culture with endothelium. In this study, the time-dependent change in the phenotype pattern of primary blood monocytes after adhering to endothelium is reported using a novel HLA-A2 mistyped co-culture model.

Methods And Results: Freshly isolated human PBMCs were co-cultured with human umbilical vein endothelial cells or human coronary arterial endothelial cells of converse human leukocyte antigen A2 (HLA-A2) status.

High-density lipoproteins enhance progenitor-mediated endothelium repair in mice.

Objective: We quantified endothelial progenitor cell (EPC) engraftment into the endothelial layer as an index of progenitor-mediated endothelial repair. Studies were conducted in C57BL/6J and in apolipoprotein E-deficient (apoE(-/-)) mice. We also investigated the possibility that high-density lipoproteins (HDL) may promote progenitor-mediated endothelial repair.

Leukocyte recruitment and expression of chemokines following different forms of vascular injury.

Unlabelled: Inflammation plays a central role in restenosis following coronary intervention. Recent human and animal data suggest important differences between the inflammatory responses to simple balloon angioplasty compared with stent implantation. To investigate the mechanisms of these differences, New Zealand white rabbits underwent bilateral iliac artery balloon denudation.

Chronic Coronary Occlusions.

The goal of management of chronic coronary occlusions is primarily the relief of cardiac ischemic symptoms. This may be achieved through the use of medical therapy, recanalization by percutaneous endovascular intervention or coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Recanalization of the occluded vessel also may have the additional benefits of improved cardiac function and long-term survival.