Ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation.

Ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation are the most important causes of sudden cardiac death (SCD), particularly in those with structural heart disease and reduced left ventricular function. It is important to distinguish ventricular tachycardia from supraventricular tachycardia. A wide spectrum of ventricular arrhythmias exists, from those where the heart is structurally normal to those with structural heart disease.

Typical atrial flutter as a risk factor for the development of atrial fibrillation in patients without otherwise demonstrable atrial tachyarrhythmias.

Objective: To investigate the incidence of atrial fibrillation after successful radiofrequency ablation for typical atrial flutter (AFL) and to compare its incidence with that of a reference population from the Framingham Heart Study to determine whether atrial flutter is an independent predictor for development of atrial fibrillation.

Patients And Methods: Medical records of 234 patients who underwent radiofrequency ablation for AFL between January 1, 2002, and June 30, 2006, were reviewed. Patients were excluded if they had a history of atrial fibrillation or sustained atrial arrhythmia other than AFL or if they had atrial tachyarrhythmias other than AFL that could be induced during electrophysiology study (133 total patients excluded).

Clinical use of carotid intima-media thickness: review of the literature.

Carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) is a simple and inexpensive tool to assess the cumulative effect of atherosclerotic risk factors and is an independent predictor of future cardiovascular risk. CIMT is commonly used as a surrogate end point in research trials as a marker of atherosclerosis. However, new software programs have made CIMT a clinically practical examination for risk evaluation.

Identification of hibernating myocardium by acoustic microscopy.

Hibernating myocardium is viable myocardium that recovers after revascularization. The observation of loss of contractile proteins (myofibrils) and accumulation of glycogen in hibernating cardiomyocytes provide the basis for diagnosing hibernating myocardium. In this pilot study, acoustic microscopy was used to identify the cellular structure of normal vs.

Usefulness of transthoracic echocardiography in demonstrating coronary blood flow after coronary artery bypass grafting.

In this pilot study, we used transthoracic echocardiography to measure coronary sinus blood flow in 15 patients before and after coronary artery bypass grafting. Coronary sinus blood flow before and after revascularization was 274 +/- 95 and 451 +/- 102 ml/min, respectively (p <0.001).