Multifaceted Strategy Based on Automated Text Messaging After a Recent Heart Failure Admission: The MESSAGE-HF Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Readmissions after an index heart failure (HF) hospitalization are a major contemporary health care problem.

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of an intensive telemonitoring strategy in the vulnerable period after an HF hospitalization.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This randomized clinical trial was conducted in 30 HF clinics in Brazil.

In-Hospital Management and Long-term Clinical Outcomes and Adherence in Patients With Acute Decompensated Heart Failure: Primary Results of the First Brazilian Registry of Heart Failure (BREATHE).

Background: Heart failure (HF), a common cause of hospitalization, is associated with poor short-term clinical outcomes. Little is known about the long-term prognoses of patients with HF in Latin America.

Methods: BREATHE was the first nationwide prospective observational study in Brazil that included patients hospitalized due to acute heart failure (HF).

The usefulness of the exercise stress test to predict outcome in patients with chronic Chagas disease: a longitudinal cohort study.

Background: Risk stratification is paramount for treatment of patients with chronic Chagas disease (CCD). The exercise stress test (EST) may be useful in the risk stratification of patients with this condition, but few studies have been performed in patients with CCD.

Methods: This was a longitudinal, retrospective cohort study.

Prevalence and clinical course of patients with chronic heart failure secondary to chronic Chagas heart disease associated with obstructive coronary artery disease.

Background: The prevalence and the outcomes of patients with chronic Chagas heart disease with obstructive coronary artery disease (CCHD-CAD) and chronic heart failure (CHF) with precordial chest pain are unsettled. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and clinical course of patients with CHF secondary to CCHD-CAD.

Methods: Patients with positive serology for Chagas disease and systolic CHF were included; those with precordial chest pain and at least two risk factors for CAD underwent coronary arteriogram.

Noninvasive prediction of late potentials in the signal-averaged ECG in patients with chronic Chagas disease.

Introduction: Considering the importance of ventricular arrhythmias in the prediction of sudden cardiac death in chronic Chagas heart disease, the aim of the present study was to associate late potentials observed in the signal-averaged electrocardiogram (SAECG) with either non-sustained ventricular tachycardia in the 24-hour Holter monitoring or reduced left ventricular ejection fraction in the 2-dimension echocardiogram.

Methods: This was a retrospective transversal study. The medical charts of 49 patients with chronic Chagas heart disease that underwent 24-hour Holter monitoring at our institution from September 2012 to December 2015 were reviewed.

Outcome of Chagas cardiomyopathy in comparison to ischemic cardiomyopathy.

Background: Chagas cardiomyopathy and ischemic heart disease (IHD) are frequent causes of chronic systolic heart failure (CHF) in areas where the former is endemic. Nonetheless, a specific comparison of outcome and role of etiology of CHF failure has not been performed in patients with both conditions.

Methods: Two-hundred twenty two patients with Chagas cardiomyopathy and 79 with IHD with CHF were included in the study.

Combination of amlodipine and enalapril in hypertensive patients with coronary disease.

Background: Patients (pts) with stable coronary artery disease (CAD) can benefit from a decrease in the blood pressure (BP), according to recent studies.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of the fixed combination: amlodipine + enalapril, when compared to amlodipine in the normalization of the diastolic arterial pressure (DAP) (<85 mmHg), in pts with CAD and systemic arterial hypertension (SAH).

Methods: Double-blind and randomized study, with two groups of pts with DAP > or =90 and <110 mmHg and CAD.

Serum ferritin and obstructive coronary artery disease: angiographic correlation.

Objective: To verify the possible association between the levels of serum ferritin and the degree of obstructive coronary artery disease.

Methods: 115 patients with coronary arteriography and concomitant evaluation of serum ferritin were studied. The adopted cut-off values were 80 ng/ml for women and 120 ng/ml for men.

The role of gender in the long-term prognosis of patients with myocardial infarction submitted to fibrinolytic treatment.

Purpose: To determine the role of gender in short- and long-term survival after a thrombolytic-treated myocardial infarction.

Methods: A total of 686 consecutive patients with ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction, admitted to a single center and treated with intravenous streptokinase, were studied prospectively and consecutively. Assessment of clinical and in-hospital variables permitted comparison of baseline characteristics and both in-hospital and long-term survival between men and women.