Do quantitative levels of cardiac troponin I implicate on severity of disease in children, adolescences, and young adults with acute myocarditis and myopericarditis?

Objectives: When cardiac muscle damage occurs, cardiac troponins are released to blood and their detection is used as a marker in clinical setting. The prognostic value of the quantitative levels of blood troponin I in cases of myocarditis and myopericarditis is unclear. The aim of this study was to analyse whether troponin quantitative blood levels can be correlated with the course of hospitalisation and prognosis.

Superior vena cava-right atrium junction flow-pattern post-transcatheter closure of patent foramen ovale.

Background: The patent foramen ovale (PFO) occluder is a bulky metallic device. Its impact on the normal blood flow at the superior vena cava-right atrial (SVC-RA) junction is not clear.

Methods: We examined SVC-RA junction flow-pattern using pulsed-wave (PW) ultrasound Doppler in 21 patients (4 male, aged 52.

Pulmonary hypertension is an independent predictor of mortality in hemodialysis patients.

Pulmonary hypertension in patients with end-stage renal disease on hemodialysis is a newly described entity. To determine its impact, we measured selected clinical variables in the survival of 127 hemodialysis patients. Overall, pulmonary hypertension was found in 37 of these patients; it was already prevalent in 17 of them before initiation of dialysis and was associated with severe cardiac dysfunction.