Response to Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors in Myeloproliferative Neoplasia with 8p11 Translocation and - Rearrangement.

This brief communication reports on a patient with an exceedingly rare "8p11 (eight-p-eleven) myeloproliferative syndrome" (EMS) with rearrangement who responded to treatment with the multi-tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) dasatinib. Dasatinib improved quality of life substantially by increasing blood counts and reducing the need for transfusions. This report demonstrates that the second-generation TKI may provide a therapeutic option for elderly and frail EMS patients who cannot be offered aggressive therapy, including allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Cardiac rehabilitation. Current status and future directions.

Comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation is more than exercise training for patients with coronary artery disease and now includes all aspects of secondary prevention. Exercise training is individually prescribed based on clinical status and therapeutic goals. Smoking cessation and abstinence and the treatment of hypercholesterolemia are integral to the rehabilitation process.

[Acute dyspnea following intravenous administration of vinblastine/mitomycin C].

A 49 year old woman treated for metastatic adenocarcinoma of the breast suddenly developed the symptoms of acute pulmonary edema 90 minutes after infusion of mitomycin C/vinblastine. No other causes of dyspnea were found. This dangerous side effect of mitomycin C/vinblastine therapy has been described previously.

[Two-dimensional exercise echocardiography. Comparison with electrocardiography, myocardial scintigraphy with thallium 201 and coronary angiography].

Biapical two-dimensional echocardiograms were obtained immediately before and after a bicycle exercise test in 54 patients referred for coronary angiography. Images of adequate quality were recorded in 47 cases (87%), 39 of whom had significant coronary artery disease. All patients also underwent a stress electrocardiogram.

Effects of acute changes in load and inotropic state on the exponential rate of fiber shortening and other indices of myocardial contractility in the anesthetized intact dog.

The effects of an acute increase in preload, afterload, and inotropic state on several indices of left ventricular contractility were studied in 20 anesthetized intact dogs. The behaviour of the exponential rate of fiber shortening (ERFS), a newly described index, which is based on the instantaneous fiber length--time relationship through ejection, was compared with other classical ejection and isovolumic indices of left ventricular contractility. Acute volume overload by dextran 40 infusion produced a significant increase in preload as reflected by a 103% (p less than 0.