Publications by authors named "Costantino Ortiz Costantini"

Background: Functional assessment of coronary artery obstruction is used in cardiology practice to correlate anatomic obstructions with flow decrease. Among such assessments, the study of the coronary fractional flow reserve (FFR) has become the most widely used.

Objective: To evaluate the correlation between FFR and findings of ischemia obtained by noninvasive methods including stress echocardiography and nuclear medicine and the presence of critical coronary artery obstruction.

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Background: Burnout Syndrome is the extreme emotional response to chronic occupational stress, manifesting as physical and mental exhaustion. Although associated with higher prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors, no study so far has evaluated whether the Burnout Syndrome could be a prevalent factor in non-elderly individuals active in the labor market, admitted for acute coronary syndrome (ACS).

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of the Burnout Syndrome in non-elderly, economically active patients, hospitalized with ACS.

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Background: Left ventricular (LV) dilation after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is an important determinant of prognosis. The ratio of early mitral inflow velocity (E) and peak early diastolic annular velocity (e') provides the best single index for noninvasive detection of acute elevation of LV filling pressure.

Objective: To assess whether E/e' ratio predicts LV remodeling after properly treated AMI compared with traditional clinical, laboratory and echocardiographic data.

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Background: In individuals with concurrent chronic kidney disease (CKD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD), the association between left atrial volume (LAV) and serum levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) is shown.

Objective: Verify the presence of associations between systemic inflammation and LA dilation in patients on hemodialysis (HD) without clinically evident CVD.

Methods: This was an observational cross-sectional study of a population on HD (> 3 months), which excluded patients with acute or chronic inflammatory diseases (infections, malignancies, autoimmune diseases) hemodynamic instability, use of anti-inflammatory drugs, hyperparathyroidism, arrhythmias, mitral valve disease and prior cardiovascular (CV) events.

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Cardiac rehabilitation protocols applied during the in-hospital phase (phase I) are subjective and their results are contested when evaluated considering what should be the three basic principles of exercise prescription: specificity, overload and reversibility. In this review, we focus on the problems associated with the models of exercise prescription applied at this early stage in-hospital and adopted today, especially the lack of clinical studies demonstrating its effectiveness. Moreover, we present the concept of "periodization" as a useful tool in the search for better results.

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Background: The efficacy of pharmacological stents in decreasing the incidence of cardiac events is not homogeneous for all lesions or patient subgroups.

Objective: 1) To evaluate the late clinical evolution of patients submitted to pharmacological stent implantation in atherosclerotic lesions of the left anterior descending artery; 2) to identify, among the clinical, angiographic and intravascular ultrasonographic characteristics, the ones predictive of cardiac event risk.

Methods: From May 2002 to August 2005, 205 patients were treated with 236 pharmacological stent implants, guided by the intravascular US (IVUS).

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