We describe a patient with Fabry disease (FD) who initially presented with atrial fibrillation without left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) 14 years before being correctly diagnosed with FD. In the interim, he survived a myocardial infarction complicated by ventricular fibrillation, and his severe LVH was misdiagnosed as sarcomeric hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. In the following 4 years, he developed proteinuric kidney disease, neuropathy, sensorineural hearing loss and gastrointestinal symptoms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCentral venous stenosis is a common complication of the transvenous leads associated with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). Although epicardial leads have been reported to bypass this complication, their placement is much more invasive than the subcutaneous ICDs (SICDs) and requires the services of a cardiothoracic surgeon. Recent data have demonstrated successful defibrillation using an SICD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Outpatient care accounts for a significant proportion of total heart failure (HF) expenditures. This observation, plus an expanding list of treatment options, has led to the development of the disease-specific HF clinic.
Methods And Results: The goals of the HF clinic are to reduce mortality and rehospitalization rates and improve quality of life for patients with HF through individualized patient care.
Background: Normal epicardial coronary arteries (NCA) based on angiography have been reported to occur more frequently in Blacks than in Whites, but these studies have suffered from the limitation of being retrospective, reporting on relatively small numbers of subjects, or lacking a systematic angiogram interpretation.
Methods And Results: Angiograms of 560 consecutive patients (226 Black and 334 White) enrolled in the Harlem-Bassett Study were reviewed. The presence of coronary artery disease risk factors was documented.