The effect of erythropoietin on exercise capacity, left ventricular remodeling, pressure-volume relationships, and quality of life in older patients with anemia and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

A prospective, open-label, 3-month study was conducted to evaluate the feasibility and short-term clinical effect of subcutaneous erythropoietin injections in patients with anemia and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (ejection fraction, 55%+/-2%). Using a dose-adjusted algorithm to effect a rate of rise in hemoglobin not to exceed 0.4 g/dL /wk, hemoglobin (10.

Peak cardiac power output, measured noninvasively, is a powerful predictor of outcome in chronic heart failure.

Background: The cardiac output (CO) response to exercise and other invasively derived hemodynamic variables has been variably described to provide better prognostication than peak V(O(2)) in patients with chronic heart failure. Using noninvasive measurements of CO during exercise, we compared the prognostic value of peak CO and cardiac power to peak V(O(2)) in chronic heart failure patients.

Method And Results: One hundred seventy-one consecutive patients with chronic heart failure underwent symptom limited bicycle exercise with noninvasive estimation of CO using an inert gas rebreathing method.

Overexpression of protease-activated receptors-1,-2, and-4 (PAR-1, -2, and -4) in prostate cancer.

Background: Although protease-activated receptors (PARs) have been described to play a role in different malignancies, their expression and biological activity in prostate cancer are mostly unknown.

Methods: PAR expression in radical prostatectomy specimens was investigated by immunohistochemistry (IHC, 40 patients) and RT-PCR. Their role in LNCaP prostate cancer cell migration and Rac1/Cdc42 signaling was assessed with Boyden chamber analysis and Western blot, respectively.

Ease of noninvasive measurement of cardiac output coupled with peak VO2 determination at rest and during exercise in patients with heart failure.

Peak oxygen consumption (VO2) is a powerful prognostic predictor of survival in patients with heart failure (HF) because it provides an indirect assessment of a patient's ability to increase cardiac output (CO). However, many peripheral factors affect VO2. Inert gas rebreathing using low-concentration soluble and insoluble inert gases can derive CO by the Fick principle.

[Serum and bronchial concentrations of netilmicin during its continuous intratracheal administration].

Respiratory tract infections in intensive care units have a high fatality rate, perhaps as a result of the poor diffusion into bronchial secretions of aminoglucosides given by a systemic route. Endotracheal administration of aminoglycosides has been advocated but the optimal dosage remains to be determined. To investigate this problem we studied 13 patients free of renal failure and 6 patients with renal failure.