Impact of telemonitoring at home on the management of elderly patients with congestive heart failure.

We studied the effects of home telemonitoring in elderly patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) on mortality and rate of hospitalization, compliance with treatment, quality of life and costs of CHF management, by comparison with a group receiving usual care. Fifty-seven elderly CHF patients were randomized to standard care or to home telemonitoring-based care and followed for 12 months. In the subjects who were monitored, weekly reports on their clinical status were obtained and their management was modified accordingly.

The interleukin-6 -174 G>C promoter polymorphism is associated with a higher risk of death after an acute coronary syndrome in male elderly patients.

Background: Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) are key mediators of inflammation and their increased plasma levels are associated with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Polymorphisms in the promoter region of IL-6 (-174 G>C) and TNF-alpha (-308 G>A) demonstrated to affect gene expression were analyzed to test their predictive power for cardiovascular death over one year follow-up in elderly male ACS patients.

Methods: We assessed the IL-6 -174 G>C polymorphism and TNF-alpha -308 G>A polymorphism in 139 consecutive elderly male patients affected by an ACS, such as ST-Elevation (STEMI), No ST-Elevation (NSTEMI) Myocardial Infarction and Unstable Angina.

Ibutilide in rapid conversion of atrial flutter in octogenarians.

Introduction: Atrial flutter is a common sustained atrial tachyarrhythmia for which frequency increases with age. Ibutilide is a novel class III antiarrhythmic agent used for the rapid cardioversion of atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter.

Aim: The aim of our study was to assess the use of ibutilide in a selected population of very elderly patients (octogenarians) with recent-onset atrial flutter.