Background: Persistent hypotension with dynamic midventricular obstruction (MVO) in patients with transient left ventricular (LV) apical ballooning (Tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy) is an important complication that needs to be treated.
Purpose: The objective of this study is to determine the effects of intravenous propranolol challenge on MVO in transient LV apical ballooning.
Subjects And Methods: Thirty-four patients (12 males, 22 females, mean age 64 +/- 17 years, age range 22-84 years) with LV apical ballooning were enrolled.
Renin-angiotensin system (RAS) inhibitors are likely to reduce the development of atrial fibrillation by preventing atrial fibrosis. Strain rate (SR) imaging is a novel echocardiographic technique to quantify left atrial (LA) function. However, it has not been determined whether SR imaging is applicable for detection of LA dysfunction in hypertensive (HT) patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is considerable interest in the pleiotropic pharmacological action of sarpogrelate hydrochloride, a novel selective serotonin 2A receptor antagonist. In the present study the persistent insulin-sensitizing effects of sarpogrelate were investigated in non-diabetic and non-medicated diabetic patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD).
Methods And Results: Indices of insulin resistance (IR) (fasting immunoreactive insulin (IRI) and calculated homeostasis model assessment (HOMA-R)) and adiponectin were measured before and after 2 weeks of sarpogrelate administration (300 mg/day) in 24 patients (19 men, 76+/-9 years) with PAD.
The objective of the present prospective multicenter case-control study was to investigate the long-term clinical outcome (5 years) of primary stenting compared to primary percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) without stenting (POBA) in patients with acute myocardial infarction at 7 cardiovascular centers in Hokkaido, Japan. Forty-one patients with acute myocardial infarction treated with successful primary stenting (stent group: case) and paired with 41 matched control subjects with acute myocardial infarction treated by successful primary PTCA without stenting (POBA group: control) were analyzed. After 1 year, the stent group had a lower incidence of the combined clinical endpoint (death, rehospitalization due to congestive heart failure, nonfatal myocardial infarction, repeat angioplasty, CABG, or cerebrovascular events) compared to the POBA group (17.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
November 2004
Attenuated tissue culture-adapted and natural street rabies virus (RV) strains differ greatly in their neuroinvasiveness. To identify the elements responsible for the ability of an RV to enter the CNS from a peripheral site and to cause lethal neurological disease, we constructed a full-length cDNA clone of silver-haired bat-associated RV (SHBRV) strain 18 and exchanged the genes encoding RV proteins and genomic sequences of this highly neuroinvasive RV strain with those of a highly attenuated nonneuroinvasive RV vaccine strain (SN0). Analysis of the recombinant RV (SB0), which was recovered from SHBRV-18 cDNA, indicated that this RV is phenotypically indistinguishable from WT SHBRV-18.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Plasma brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) level and cardiac autonomic function are closely related to prognosis in patients with heart failure. However, their correlation and incremental prognostic values in human heart failure are unclear. We sought to evaluate the correlation between BNP level and cardiac sympathetic innervation assessed by (123)I-metaiodobenzylguanidine ((123)I-MIBG) and the prognostic value of combined assessment of risk factors for mortality in patients with heart failure.
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