Acute effects of smoking on left ventricular function and neuro-humoral responses in patients with known or suspected ischaemic heart disease.

Systolic left ventricular function was examined by radionuclide ventriculography in 12 habitual smokers with known or suspected ischaemic heart disease, aged 33-69 years, before, during, and after smoking of two cigarettes in a row and was repeated on a non-smoking control day. Plasma concentrations of adrenaline, noradrenaline, renin, and angiotensin II were determined on the smoking day, before and immediately after smoking. During smoking, there were significant increases in heart rate (+27%), rate-pressure product (+23%), and cardiac output (+14%) in the face of a significant increase in left ventricular end-systolic volume (+5%) and significant decreases in ejection fraction (-6%) and stroke volume (-8%).

The Influence of Ace-Inhibition by Captopril on Renal Formation and Metabolism of Angiotensins I and II in Patients with Reno-Vascular Hypertension.

Fourteen patients with hypertension of presumed renovascular etiology were studied by renal vein catheterization. Unilateral renin secretion was found in 8 patients. In 4 of these patients a positive veno-arterial difference of plasma angiotensin I concentration (PAI) across the affected kidney increased markedly after a single dose of captopril.