Haemodynamic Balance in Acute and Advanced Heart Failure: An Expert Perspective on the Role of Levosimendan.

Acute and advanced heart failure are associated with substantial adverse short- and longer-term prognosis. Both conditions necessitate complex treatment choices to restore haemodynamic stability and organ perfusion, relieve congestion, improve symptoms and allow the patient to leave the hospital and achieve an adequate quality of life. Among the available intravenous vasoactive therapies, inotropes constitute an option when an increase in cardiac contractility is needed to reverse a low output state.

Impact of β-thalassemia trait carrier state on inflammatory status in patients with newly diagnosed hypertension.

Background: B-thalassemia carrier state or thalassemia minor confers cardiovascular protection through favorable lipidemic and blood pressure profile. However, its impact on inflammatory status-a common denominator of the above conditions-has not been addressed.

Methods: We investigated a wide range of inflammatory markers [white blood cell (WBC) count, homocysteine, C-reactive protein (CRP), serum amyloid A (SAA), fibrinogen, plasminogen, fibronectin, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1), and uric acid] in a large cohort of 15 805 newly diagnosed hypertensive patients (8299 men, 7506 women); 626 of them (4.