Angina Severity and Symptom Improvement Are Associated With Diagnostic Acetylcholine Provocation Dose in Vasospastic Angina.

Background: A coronary function test (CFT) is the recommended diagnostic test to identify coronary vasomotor dysfunction as a cause of symptoms in patients with angina and nonobstructive coronary arteries (ANOCA). Acetylcholine is the commonly used pharmacological agent for spasm provocation. We aimed to investigate an association between severity of symptoms and provocative acetylcholine dose.

Improving the accUracy of Referrals to the emerGency departmEnt of patieNts with chesT pain using the modified HEART score in Emergency Medical Transport (URGENT 2.0): protocol for a multicentre randomised controlled trial.

Introduction: Ischaemic heart disease is the single most common cause of death worldwide. Traditionally, distinguishing patients with cardiac ischaemia from patients with less alarming disease, in prehospital triage of chest pain, is challenging for both general practitioners and ambulance paramedics. Less than 20% of patients with chest pain, transferred to the emergency department (ED), have an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and the transportation and analysis at the ED of non-ACS patients result in substantial healthcare costs and a great patient burden.

Combined strategy of upfront CTCA and optimal treatment for stable chest pain: rationale and design of the CLEAR-CAD trial.

Background: Patients with stable chest pain suspected of coronary artery disease (CAD) usually undergo multiple diagnostic tests to confirm or rule out obstructive CAD. Some tests may not effectively assess the presence of CAD, precluding optimal treatment. A diagnostic strategy of upfront computed tomography coronary angiography (CTCA) combined with optimal medical therapy (OMT) tailored to the extent of CAD may be superior to standard care in preventing major adverse cardiac events.

Assessment of ICD eligibility in non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy patients: a position statement by the Task Force of the Dutch Society of Cardiology.

International guidelines recommend implantation of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) in non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy (NICM) patients with a left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) below 35% despite optimal medical therapy and a life expectancy of more than 1 year with good functional status. We propose refinement of these recommendations in patients with NICM, with careful consideration of additional risk parameters for both arrhythmic and non-arrhythmic death. These additional parameters include late gadolinium enhancement on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and genetic testing for high-risk genetic variants to further assess arrhythmic risk, and age, comorbidities and sex for assessment of non-arrhythmic mortality risk.

Extended MRI-based PET motion correction for cardiac PET/MRI.

Purpose: A 2D image navigator (iNAV) based 3D whole-heart sequence has been used to perform MRI and PET non-rigid respiratory motion correction for hybrid PET/MRI. However, only the PET data acquired during the acquisition of the 3D whole-heart MRI is corrected for respiratory motion. This study introduces and evaluates an MRI-based respiratory motion correction method of the complete PET data.