Prediction of angiographic coronary disease and mortality with a cadmium-zinc-telluride camera: a comparison of upright and supine ejection fractions and left ventricular volumes.

Introduction: Perfusion imaging strongly predicts coronary artery disease (CAD), whereas cardiac volumes and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) strongly predict mortality. Compared to conventional Anger single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) cameras, cadmium-zinc-telluride (CZT) cameras provide higher resolution, resulting in different left ventricular volumes. The cadmium-zinc-telluride D-SPECT camera is commonly used to image in the upright position, which introduces changes in left ventricular loading conditions and potentially alters left ventricular volumes.

Optimal Intensity and Duration of Walking Rehabilitation in Patients With Chronic Stroke: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: For walking rehabilitation after stroke, training intensity and duration are critical dosing parameters that lack optimization.

Objective: To assess the optimal training intensity (vigorous vs moderate) and minimum training duration (4, 8, or 12 weeks) needed to maximize immediate improvement in walking capacity in patients with chronic stroke.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This multicenter randomized clinical trial using an intent-to-treat analysis was conducted from January 2019 to April 2022 at rehabilitation and exercise research laboratories.

A 3-minute recumbent stepper test in chronic stroke.

Background: Persons with stroke often have difficulty achieving target heart rate (HR) during graded exercise testing (GXT), which is known to limit test sensitivity for detecting clinically relevant cardiac conditions. A novel Recumbent Stepper 3-minute (RS 3Min) "all out" test may increase sensitivity of stress testing after stroke.

Objective: To determine the feasibility of adding the RS 3Min test after GXT among persons after stroke.

Ventricular Tachycardia or Fibrillation Storm in Coronavirus Disease.

Ventricular tachycardia (VT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF) storm associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection is a potentially fatal complication; the correlation of these 2 disorders, however, has not been well studied. This retrospective case series examined outcomes of 2 patients who were admitted for repeated implantable cardioverter-defibrillator shocks with or without syncope and observed to have VT/VF storms with COVID-19. Mechanisms of VT/VF storms in COVID-19 are multifactorial including myocarditis, systemic inflammation, hyperadrenergic state, hemodynamic instability, hypoxia, acidosis, and proarrhythmic drugs.