Abnormal heart rate recovery immediately after treadmill testing: correlation with clinical, exercise testing, and myocardial perfusion parameters.

Background: The increase in heart rate during exercise is considered to be attributed to sympathetic system activation combined with parasympathetic withdrawal. The prognostic importance of the chronotropic response to exercise and heart rate recovery 1 minute after exercise has already been established. The purpose of this study was to evaluate heart rate recovery as an index of myocardial ischemia, by correlating heart rate recovery with known parameters of myocardial ischemia.

Tc-99m tetrofosmin myocardial SPECT combined with a modified exercise protocol in an unusual case of steal phenomenon.

A 61-year-old diabetic woman was referred for myocardial perfusion single photon emission computed tomographic (SPECT) imaging 4 years after coronary artery bypass grafting to the left anterior descending (LAD) artery using a left internal mammary artery (LIMA) graft. She had 3 months' angina associated with fatigue of her left upper extremity (the patient is left-handed). Stress myocardial imaging using a Bruce protocol did not exhibit significant myocardial ischemia, but because of her typical angina symptoms, she underwent repeat stress myocardial imaging in combination with exercise of her left arm.

Carotid atherosclerosis in type 2 diabetes mellitus: potential role of endothelin-1, lipoperoxides, and prostacyclin.

Factors were studied that may initiate macroangiopathy or enhance or aggravate its pathogenesis in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. A total of 151 diabetics were compared with healthy controls (n=50); all patients and subjects were normotensive and without renal failure. Plasma endothelin-1 and free radical levels were measured.