Economic evaluation of exercise training in patients with pulmonary hypertension.

Purpose: Exercise training as an add-on to medical therapy has been shown to improve exercise capacity, quality of life, and possibly prognosis in patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH). The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of exercise training on healthcare costs in PH.

Methods: Estimated healthcare costs have been compared between patients with severe PH under optimized medical therapy only (control group) versus patients who received exercise training as an add-on to medical therapy (training group).

Estimating quality adjusted progression free survival of first-line treatments for EGFR mutation positive non small cell lung cancer patients in The Netherlands.

Background: Gefitinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, is an effective treatment in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with an activating mutation in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Randomised clinical trials showed a benefit in progression free survival for gefitinib versus doublet chemotherapy regimens in patients with an activated EGFR mutation (EGFR M+). From a patient perspective, progression free survival is important, but so is health-related quality of life.

Ventricular remodelling is a prerequisite for the induction of dofetilide-induced torsade de pointes arrhythmias in the anaesthetized, complete atrio-ventricular-block dog.

Introduction: A number of predisposing factors have been suggested to be contributing to drug-induced torsade de pointes (TdP) arrhythmias: short-long-short (SLS) sequence, bradycardia, timing of drug administration, anaesthesia, ventricular remodelling, and altered ventricular activation due to ventricular ectopic beats (SLS) or idioventricular rhythm (IVR). Chronic atrio-ventricular (AV)-block (CAVB) dogs are susceptible to dofetilide-induced TdP.

Methods And Results: In 32 anaesthetized animals, the relevance of ventricular remodelling for TdP susceptibility was studied by dofetilide [0.

Effects of contractile protein phosphorylation on force development in permeabilized rat cardiac myocytes.

The phosphorylation status of myofibrillar proteins influences the Ca(2+) responsiveness of the myofilaments,but the contribution of and the interaction between the individual components is poorly characterized. Therefore, in Langendorff perfused rat hearts (n=30), the phosphorylation levels of cardiac myosin binding protein-C (cMyBP-C), troponin I and T (cTnI, cTnT) and myosin light chain 1 and 2 (MLC-1, MLC-2) were determined by 1- and 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Isometric force development, its Ca(2+)-sensitivity, the rate of tension redevelopment (k(tr)) and passive force (F(pas)) were studied at optimal sarcomere length (2.

Increased short-term variability of repolarization predicts d-sotalol-induced torsades de pointes in dogs.

Background: Identification of patients at risk for drug-induced torsades de pointes arrhythmia (TdP) is difficult. Increased temporal lability of repolarization has been suggested as being valuable to predict proarrhythmia. The predictive value of different repolarization parameters, including beat-to-beat variability of repolarization (BVR), was compared in this serial investigation in dogs with chronic AV block.

Electrophysiological and proarrhythmic parameters in transmural canine left-ventricular needle biopsies.

This study was designed to validate the use of small, transmural, left-ventricular biopsies in the dog for investigations of electrophysiological and proarrhythmic properties of the heart. This technique could facilitate pharmacological in vitro testing in remodelled hearts of both man and animal. Small, transmural, semi-cylindrical, left-ventricular biopsies from dogs with normal sinus rhythm (SR) were characterized electrophysiologically and compared with biopsies from electrically remodelled hearts from dogs with chronic, complete AV-block (CAVB).

The JT-area indicates dispersion of repolarization in dogs with atrioventricular block.

Unlabelled: Heterogeneity in cardiac repolarization (Delta APD) is known to be arrhythmic. In the dog model of chronic complete AV-block and acquired long QT syndrome, an increase in Delta MAPD (defined as left ventricular monophasic action potential duration (MAPD) minus right ventricular MAPD) is often associated with changes in T-wave morphology. The purpose of this study was to correlate known changes in Delta MAPD with the planimetric total area of the T-wave on the surface ECG (integral of J-T, mVx ms).