Clinical Characteristics, Treatment, and Short-Term Outcome in Patients with Heart Failure and Cancer.

(1) Our study aimed to look at the clinical characteristics, treatment and short-term outcomes of patients hospitalized due to heart failure with coexisting cancer. (2) Methods: Seventy one cancer (Ca) patients and a randomly selected 70 patients without Ca, hospitalized due to heart failure exacerbation in the same time period constituted the study group (Ca patient group) and controls (non-Ca group), respectively. Data on clinical characteristics were collected retrospectively for both groups.

Correction: Design, development, testing at ISO standards and in vivo feasibility study of a novel polymeric heart valve prosthesis.

Correction for 'Design, development, testing at ISO standards and in vivo feasibility study of a novel polymeric heart valve prosthesis' by Joanna R. Stasiak et al., Biomater.

Design, development, testing at ISO standards and in vivo feasibility study of a novel polymeric heart valve prosthesis.

Clinically available prosthetic heart valves are life-saving, but imperfect: mechanical valves requiring anticoagulation therapy, whilst bioprosthetic valves have limited durability. Polymer valves offer the prospect of good durability without the need for anticoagulation. We report the design and development of a polymeric heart valve, its bench-testing at ISO standards, and preliminary extra-vivo and in vivo short-term feasibility.

Drug Delivery Systems for Vitamin D Supplementation and Therapy.

Vitamin D (VD) is a fat-soluble prohormone well known for its role in regulating calcium and phosphate metabolism. It has been clinically used for many years to prevent rickets in children, osteomalacia, and osteoporosis in adults. VD insufficiency is a common medical condition, and many supplements are available in the market in order to increase serum 25-hydroxy VD levels to recommended amounts.

Quantifying the Shift Toward Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement in Low-Risk Patients: A Meta-Analysis.

Background: In recent years, use of transcatheter aortic valve replacement has expanded to include patients at intermediate- and low-risk cohorts. We sought to determine disease prevalence and treatment distribution including transcatheter aortic valve replacement eligibility in low-risk patients across 37 advanced economies.

Methods And Results: Four systematic searches were conducted across MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane database for studies evaluating disease prevalence, severity, decision making, and survival in patients with aortic stenosis.

Evaluation of an aortic valve prosthesis: Fluid-structure interaction or structural simulation?

Bio-inspired polymeric heart valves (PHVs) are excellent candidates to mimic the structural and the fluid dynamic features of the native valve. PHVs can be implanted as prosthetic alternative to currently clinically used mechanical and biological valves or as potential candidate for a minimally invasive treatment, like the transcatheter aortic valve implantation. Nevertheless, PHVs are not currently used for clinical applications due to their lack of reliability.

Shear Alignment of Bola-Amphiphilic Arginine-Coated Peptide Nanotubes.

The bola-amphiphilic arginine-capped peptide RFLRF self-assembles into nanotubes in aqueous solution. The nanostructure and rheology are probed by in situ simultaneous rheology/small-angle scattering experiments including rheo-SAXS, rheo-SANS, and rheo-GISANS (SAXS: small-angle X-ray scattering, SANS: small-angle neutron scattering, GISANS: grazing incidence small-angle neutron scattering). Nematic alignment of peptide nanotubes under shear is observed at sufficiently high shear rates under steady shear in either Couette or cone-and-plate geometry.

Hemocompatibility of styrenic block copolymers for use in prosthetic heart valves.

Certain styrenic thermoplastic block copolymer elastomers can be processed to exhibit anisotropic mechanical properties which may be desirable for imitating biological tissues. The ex-vivo hemocompatibility of four triblock (hard-soft-hard) copolymers with polystyrene hard blocks and polyethylene, polypropylene, polyisoprene, polybutadiene or polyisobutylene soft blocks are tested using the modified Chandler loop method using fresh human blood and direct contact cell proliferation of fibroblasts upon the materials. The hemocompatibility and durability performance of a heparin coating is also evaluated.

Fluid dynamic characterization of a polymeric heart valve prototype (Poli-Valve) tested under continuous and pulsatile flow conditions.

Purpose: Only mechanical and biological heart valve prostheses are currently commercially available. The former show longer durability but require anticoagulant therapy; the latter display better fluid dynamic behavior but do not have adequate durability. New Polymeric Heart Valves (PHVs) could potentially combine the hemodynamic properties of biological valves with the durability of mechanical valves.

A Newly Developed Tri-Leaflet Polymeric Heart Valve Prosthesis.

The potential of polymeric heart valves (PHV) prostheses is to combine the hemodynamic performances of biological valves with the durability of mechanical valves. The aim of this work is to design and develop a new tri-leaflet prosthetic heart valve (HV) made from styrenic block copolymers. A computational finite element model was implemented to optimize the thickness of the leaflets, to improve PHV mechanical and hydrodynamic performances.

A bio-inspired microstructure induced by slow injection moulding of cylindrical block copolymers.

It is well known that block copolymers with cylindrical morphology show alignment with shear, resulting in anisotropic mechanical properties. Here we show that well-ordered bi-directional orientation can be achieved in such materials by slow injection moulding. This results in a microstructure, and anisotropic mechanical properties, similar to many natural tissues, making this method attractive for engineering prosthetic fibrous tissues.

Mechanical strength of sutured block copolymers films for load bearing medical applications.

The mechanical behavior of three styrenic thermoplastic block copolymer elastomers with applied surgical sutures was studied by uniaxial tensile testing. The materials exhibited oriented cylindrical microstructure. Distinct macroscopic deformation mechanisms have been observed upon stretching of samples with vertical and horizontal orientation.

Frontiers in biomedical engineering and biotechnology.

The 2nd International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology (iCBEB 2013), held in Wuhan on 11–13 October 2013, is an annual conference that aims at providing an opportunity for international and national researchers and practitioners to present the most recent advances and future challenges in the fields of Biomedical Information, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology. The papers published by this issue are selected from this conference, which witnesses the frontier in the field of Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, which particularly has helped improving the level of clinical diagnosis in medical work.