Echocardiography for the management of patients with biventricular pacing: Possible roles in cardiac resynchronization therapy implementation.

Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is an established therapeutic option for the subset of patients with heart failure (HF), reduced ejection fraction (EF), and dyssynchrony evidenced by electrocardiography. Benefit from CRT has been proven in many clinical trials, yet a sizeable proportion of these patients with wide QRS do not respond to this intervention, despite the updated practice guidelines. Several echocardiographic indices, targeting mechanical rather than electrical dyssynchrony, have been suggested to address this issue, but research so far has not succeeded in providing a single and simple measurement with adequate sensitivity and specificity for identification of responders.

Study of atrial function using echocardiographic automatic boundary detection following external or internal cardioversion for idiopathic atrial fibrillation.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity of an echocardiographic method of automatic boundary detection (ABD) in the assessment of the degree of atrial dysfunction in patients who had undergone external or internal cardioversion for idiopathic atrial fibrillation.

Methods: The study population included 31 patients (mean age 48 +/- 6.5 years) with idiopathic atrial fibrillation.

Younger age potentiates post myocardial infarction survival disadvantage of women.

Background: Female patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI) exhibit higher unadjusted in-hospital mortality rates compared to male patients. However, contradictory evidence exists on whether this survival disadvantage disappears after adjustment for age and other prognostic factors. This study, based on a countrywide survey of consecutive unselected patients with acute MI, examined whether female gender is an independent predictor of poor short-term outcome and less intensive in-hospital treatment.