Diabetes influences the cardiac symptoms related to atrial fibrillation.

It is well known that diabetes mellitus (DM) masks the cardiac symptoms during an ischemic heart attack, but there have not been reports of whether DM influences the subjective symptoms of atrial fibrillation (AF). The present study retrospectively assessed 65 patients who were revealed to be in sinus rhythm at their first visit to hospital and who had experienced episodes of AF (or paroxysmal AF) during the follow-up period. Compared with non-DM cases (n=50), DM patients (n=15) had a tendency to a more rapid heart rate in sinus rhythm (73+/-4 vs 66+/-2, p=0.

[An elderly patients with ventricular aneurysm, thrombus in the aneurysm, and cerebral infarction 10 years after myocardial infarction].

A 75-year-old man had a 26-year history of hypertension and an 18-year history of effort angina pectoris. He suffered acute myocardial infarction at age 61. According to serial echocardiography, the initially hypokinetic segment of the left ventricular apex was transformed to an apical aneurysm over the course of 10 years (at age 71).