Evaluation of the performance of echocardiography in acute coronary syndrome patients during their stay in coronary units.

Objectives: To evaluate the frequency and the factors associated with performance of echocardiography in acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients during their stay in intensive care units or coronary care units (ICU/CCU).

Methods: Retrospective cohort study including all patients diagnosed with acute coronary syndrome-unstable angina (UA), acute myocardial infarction (AMI)-included in the 'ARIAM' Spanish multi-centre register. The study period was from June 1996 to December 2005.

Sustained ventricular arrhythmias in unstable angina patients: results of the ARIAM database.

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate patients with unstable angina (UA) and the predictive factors of these arrhythmias and to determine whether this complication behaves as an independent variable with regard to mortality, increased length of stay in an ICU/CCU, and the performance of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

Material/methods: The retrospective cohort study included all patients diagnosed with UA and included in the Spanish "ARIAM" database between June 1996 and December 2005. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to evaluate the factors associated with these arrhythmias.

[Mean length of stay and prognosis in unstable angina. Results from the ARIAM database].

Background And Objective: The objective of this project is to investigate the factors predicting mortality and mean length of stay in patients diagnosed with unstable angina (UA) during admission to the Intensive Care Unit or Critical Care Unit (ICU/CCU).

Patients And Method: A retrospective cohort study including all the UA patients listed in the Spanish ARIAM register. The study period comprised from June, 1996 to December, 2003.

Paradoxical effect of smoking in the Spanish population with acute myocardial infarction or unstable angina: results of the ARIAM Register.

Objectives: The paradoxical effect of smoking after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is a phenomenon consisting of a reduction in the mortality of smokers compared to nonsmokers. However, it is not known whether the benefit of this reduction in mortality is due to smoking itself or to other covariables. Despite acceptance of the paradoxical effect of smoking in AMI, it is not known whether a similar phenomenon occurs in unstable angina.

Ventricular fibrillation in acute myocardial infarction in Spanish patients: Results of the ARIAM database.

Objective: The aim of this study has been to investigate the factors predisposing to primary or secondary ventricular fibrillation (VF) and the prognosis in Spanish patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) during their admission to the intensive care unit or the coronary care unit.

Design: A retrospective, observational study.

Setting: The intensive care units and coronary care units of 119 Spanish hospitals.

[Apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy without aneurysm. Diagnosis trough myocardial gammagraphy and magnetic resonance].

We present three patients with apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, their diagnosis was performed by means of imaging techniques to determine morphology, severity, configuration, complications, and distribution of the ventricular hypertrophy. Through color-flow and pulsed Doppler, the protosystolic flow in the midventricular region was detected, which we believe corresponds to the obstruction due to coarctation of the walls during early ventricular systole and that this gradient is independent from the one identified as paradoxical in patients with apical aneurysm. Explorations by means of magnetic resonance and Gated-Spect myocardial gammagraphy revealed the apical location of the hypertrophy confirming the "spadelike" configuration of the left ventricle and the absence of apical aneurysm.