A Boulder in the Chest: Case of Massive Pulmonary Artery Sarcoma.

A 79-year-old woman presented with dyspnea and cough. Workup revealed a pulmonary artery mass. After undergoing surgery, she was treated with adjuvant immunotherapy for an undifferentiated pulmonary artery sarcoma.

Post-acute COVID-19 syndrome.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the pathogen responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which has resulted in global healthcare crises and strained health resources. As the population of patients recovering from COVID-19 grows, it is paramount to establish an understanding of the healthcare issues surrounding them. COVID-19 is now recognized as a multi-organ disease with a broad spectrum of manifestations.

The cardiac intensive care unit and the cardiac intensivist during the COVID-19 surge in New York City.

Critical care cardiology has been impacted by the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. COVID-19 causes severe acute respiratory distress syndrome, acute kidney injury, as well as several cardiovascular complications including myocarditis, venous thromboembolic disease, cardiogenic shock, and cardiac arrest. The cardiac intensive care unit is rapidly evolving as the need for critical care beds increases.

Cardiac Tumors: Clinical Presentation, Diagnosis, and Management.

Cardiac masses and tumors are a heterogenous group of disorders and include primary tumors (both benign and malignant), metastatic disease, and numerous masquerades such as thrombus. Clinical presentation ranges from incidental discovery on imaging tests ordered for other reasons to life-threatening presentations such as cardiac tamponade, arrhythmia, obstruction, and systemic embolization. Of the available imaging modalities, cardiac MRI is generally the most useful for assessment and helps to delineate the relevant anatomy.

Incidence, predictors, and impact of neurological events in non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndromes: the ACUITY trial.

Aims: We sought to describe the incidence, predictors, and impact of adverse neurological events (NE) in a non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndromes (NSTEACS) population undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), or medical therapy (MT).

Methods And Results: 13,819 patients with moderate and high-risk NSTEACS were enrolled in the prospective ACUITY trial. Angiography was performed within 72 hours of presentation, after which 7,789 patients (56.

Counterpoint: Access to transcatheter aortic valve replacement should not be limited to high-volume surgical centers.

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has transformed the treatment of aortic stenosis in high-risk older adults in Europe and has begun to do so in the United States. Recent Food and Drug Administration approval of the Edwards Lifesciences SAPIEN Transcatheter Heart Valve (Irvine, Calif) in inoperable and high-risk patients led to enthusiasm for widespread implementation of this technology. Experts have highlighted the central role of the multidisciplinary heart team in implementing a successful TAVR program.

Updating an institutional chest pain algorithm: incorporating new evidence on emerging pharmacotherapy.

Clinical treatment pathways are useful to ensure that evidence-based medicine is consistently applied in hospital systems and have been shown to improve patient outcomes. Such pathways need to be regularly updated and revised by incorporating new evidence from clinical trials to ensure optimal clinical care. In 2011, we published the Columbia University Medical Center/New York Presbyterian Hospital - Clinical Pathways for Acute Coronary Syndromes and Chest Pain.

Impact of the presence and extent of incomplete angiographic revascularization after percutaneous coronary intervention in acute coronary syndromes: the Acute Catheterization and Urgent Intervention Triage Strategy (ACUITY) trial.

Background: The clinical significance of incomplete coronary revascularization (ICR) after percutaneous coronary intervention in patients with acute coronary syndromes is unknown.

Methods And Results: We performed quantitative angiography of the entire coronary tree in 2954 patients with acute coronary syndromes in the Acute Catheterization and Urgent Intervention Triage Strategy (ACUITY) trial. ICR was variably defined if any lesion with diameter stenosis (DS) cutoffs ranging from ≥30% to ≥70% with reference vessel diameter ≥2.

Quantification and impact of untreated coronary artery disease after percutaneous coronary intervention: the residual SYNTAX (Synergy Between PCI with Taxus and Cardiac Surgery) score.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to quantify the extent and complexity of residual coronary stenoses following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and to evaluate its impact on adverse ischemic outcomes.

Background: Incomplete revascularization (IR) after PCI is common, and most studies have suggested that IR is associated with a worse prognosis compared with complete revascularization (CR). However, formal quantification of the extent and complexity of residual atherosclerosis after PCI has not been performed.

The Concept of "Burden" in Atrial Fibrillation.

Over the last decade or so the term "burden" has become frequently encountered in manuscripts discussing atrial fibrillation (AF). AF "burden" is perhaps most commonly encountered in the electrophysiological context - the amount of time the patient is in AF out of the total monitored time (i.e.

Twelve hours of sustained ventricular fibrillation supported by a continuous-flow left ventricular assist device.

Left ventricular assist device (LVAD) therapy improves survival and quality of life by mechanically unloading the left ventricle and maintaining hemodynamics in patients with end-stage heart failure. LVADs can also be lifesaving by maintaining hemodynamics during ventricular arrhythmia. Continuous-flow LVADs have become the preferred LVAD technology.

Intractable cardiac arrest due to lidocaine toxicity successfully resuscitated with lipid emulsion.

Objective: Demonstrate a case report involving successful use of lipid emulsion therapy for intractable cardiac arrest due to lidocaine toxicity.

Data Source: Lipid emulsion therapy has been shown to be effective in treating the cardiotoxic effects of such drugs as bupivacaine, verapamil, propranolol, and clomipramine as mentioned in a 2009 editorial in Critical Care Medicine by Jeffrey Bent. The mechanism of action of lipid emulsion therapy is not well defined and has been postulated to work by both a "lipid sink," decreasing circulating amounts of drugs to the periphery, or through a direct "energy source" to the myocardium.

Myocardial parvovirus B19 persistence: lack of association with clinicopathologic phenotype in adults with heart failure.

Background: Multiple viruses have been isolated from the heart, but their significance remains controversial. We sought to determine the prevalence of cardiotropic viruses in endomyocardial biopsy (EMB) samples from adult patients with heart failure (HF) and to define the clinicopathologic profile of patients exhibiting viral positivity.

Methods And Results: EMB from 100 patients (median ejection fraction, 30%; interquartile range [IQR], 20% to 45%) presenting for cardiomyopathy evaluation (median symptom duration, 5 months; IQR, 1 to 13 months) were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction for adenovirus, cytomegalovirus, enteroviruses, Epstein-Barr virus, and parvovirus B19.

Electrical remodeling contributes to complex tachyarrhythmias in connexin43-deficient mouse hearts.

Loss of connexin43 (Cx43) gap junction channels in the heart results in a marked increase in the incidence of spontaneous and inducible polymorphic ventricular tachyarrhythmias (PVTs). The mechanisms resulting in this phenotype remain unclear. We hypothesized that uncoupling promotes regional ion channel remodeling, thereby increasing electrical heterogeneity and facilitating the development of PVT.

Reduced intercellular coupling leads to paradoxical propagation across the Purkinje-ventricular junction and aberrant myocardial activation.

Ventricular tachycardia is a common heart rhythm disorder and a frequent cause of sudden cardiac death. Aberrant cell-cell coupling through gap junction channels, a process termed gap junction remodeling, is observed in many of the major forms of human heart disease and is associated with increased arrhythmic risk in both humans and in animal models. Genetically engineered mice with cardiac-restricted knockout of Connexin43, the major cardiac gap junctional protein, uniformly develop sudden cardiac death, although a detailed electrophysiological understanding of their profound arrhythmic propensity is unclear.

Combat hypoxia: the importance of airway management & oxygenation of the traumatic brain injury patient.

Brain injury, specifically TBI, is a common occurrence in our society, with devastating physical, emotional, social and economic costs. Injury not only occurs on initial impact, but also develops slowly over ensuing hours or days. TBI poses unique challenges and requires special care, especially with airway management and ventilatory treatment.