Mental stress provokes ischemia in coronary artery disease subjects without exercise- or adenosine-induced ischemia.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility that some patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) but negative exercise or chemical stress test results might have mental stress-induced ischemia. The study population consisted solely of those with negative test results.

Background: Mental stress-induced ischemia has been reported in 20% to 70% of CAD subjects with exercise-induced ischemia.

Comamonas (Pseudomonas) testosteroni endocarditis.

Comamonas testosteroni has rarely been implicated as a human pathogen. We report a case of infectious endocarditis due to this organism, occurring in a 49-year-old man. The posterior leaflet of the mitral valve contained a 1 x 1 cm vegetation and showed myxoid degeneration and acute inflammation.

Left ventricular dysfunction after pericardiectomy for constrictive pericarditis.

A 56-year-old man was admitted to our hospital with a diagnosis of suspected constrictive pericarditis. After the diagnosis was confirmed by cardiac catheterization, an elective pericardiectomy was performed without complication. Four days after surgery dyspnea developed in the patient, and he was found to have an acute decrease in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) by echocardiography.