Effectiveness of a cardiac rehabilitation program on biomechanical, imaging, and physiological biomarkers in elderly patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF): FUNNEL + study protocol.

Background: Patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) have a low functional status, which in turn is a risk factor for hospital admission and an important predictor of survival in HFpEF. HFpFE is a heterogeneous syndrome and recent studies have suggested an important role for careful, pathophysiological-based phenotyping to improve patient characterization. Cardiac rehabilitation has proven to be a useful tool in the framework of secondary prevention in patients with HFpEF.

Prior Treatment with Statins is Associated with Improved Outcomes of Patients with COVID-19: Data from the SEMI-COVID-19 Registry.

Background: The impact of statins on COVID-19 outcomes is important given the high prevalence of their use among individuals at risk for severe COVID-19. Our aim is to assess whether patients receiving chronic statin treatment who are hospitalized with COVID-19 have reduced in-hospital mortality if statin therapy is maintained during hospitalization.

Methods: This work is a cross-sectional, observational, retrospective multicenter study that analyzed 2921 patients who required hospital admission at 150 Spanish centers included in the nationwide SEMI-COVID-19 Network.

Admission hyperglycaemia as a predictor of mortality in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 regardless of diabetes status: data from the Spanish SEMI-COVID-19 Registry.

Background: Hyperglycaemia has emerged as an important risk factor for death in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between blood glucose (BG) levels and in-hospital mortality in non-critically patients hospitalized with COVID-19.

Methods: This is a retrospective multi-centre study involving patients hospitalized in Spain.

Familial aortic coarctation: a rare cause of refractory hypertension in the elderly: a case report.

We report the first case of late presentation of familial aortic coarctation, a rare cause of hypertension. Diagnosis of familial aortic coarctation in the elderly is exceptional, given that in the absence of endovascular or surgical repair patients do not usually survive beyond 50 years of age. Our case concerns a 72-year-old woman with hypertension of long evolution, control of which improved markedly after endovascular repair of the coarctation.

Metabolic syndrome and vascular risk estimation in a Mediterranean non-diabetic population without cardiovascular disease.

Aims: Vascular risk equations are tools used to help prevent cardiovascular events. Our aim was to compare the REGICOR and SCORE equations in a general population and in persons with the metabolic syndrome (MS) according to the criteria of the International Diabetes Federation.

Methods And Results: We calculated the cardiovascular risk with both equations in a random sample of 838 non-diabetic persons aged 40-65years without a history of cardiovascular disease, of whom 251 had the MS.

Alterations of specific biomarkers of metabolic pathways in vascular tree from patients with Type 2 diabetes.

The aims of this study were to check whether different biomarkers of inflammatory, apoptotic, immunological or lipid pathways had altered their expression in the occluded popliteal artery (OPA) compared with the internal mammary artery (IMA) and femoral vein (FV) and to examine whether glycemic control influenced the expression of these genes. The study included 20 patients with advanced atherosclerosis and type 2 diabetes mellitus, 15 of whom had peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD), from whom samples of OPA and FV were collected. PAOD patients were classified based on their HbA1c as well (HbA1c ≤ 6.