Daily ROX index can predict transitioning to mechanical ventilation within the next 24 h in COVID-19 patients on HFNC.

Introduction: High flow nasal cannula (HFNC) is used to prevent invasive ventilation in COVID-19-associated hypoxemia. The respiratory rate‑oxygenation (ROX) index has been reported to predict failure of HFNC in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia during the intensive care unit stay when measured in first hours of therapy. However, the clinical course of ICU patients may change substantially in the first days of admission.

New Insights on the Mechanisms of Myocardial Injury in Hypertensive Patients With COVID-19.

Purpose: Myocardial injury is common in hypertensive patients with 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Immune dysregulation could be associated to cardiac injury in these patients, but the underlying mechanism has not been fully elucidated.

Methods: All patients were selected prospectively from a multicenter registry of adults hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19.

Influenza Vaccination as Prevention Therapy for Stable Coronary Artery Disease and Acute Coronary Syndrome: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials.

Background: Influenza can cause a significant burden on patients with coronary artery disease. This meta-analysis assessed the effectiveness of influenza vaccination in patients with acute coronary syndrome and stable coronary artery disease.

Methods: We searched the Cochrane Controlled Register of Trials (CENTRAL), Embase, MEDLINE, www.

Effects of phosphodiesterase 5 inhibition on cardiovascular function in resistant hypertension: A systematic review.

Approximately 12-18% of hypertensive patients are diagnosed with resistant hypertension (RH). The risk of having worse cardiovascular outcomes is twice higher in those patients. The low effectiveness of conventional antihypertensive drugs in RH emphasizes the need to evaluate complementary drug therapies to achieve blood pressure (BP) control.

Liver stiffness as measured by transient elastography is a predictor of outcomes in patients with chronic heart failure with reduced, mid-range, and recovered left-ventricular ejection fraction.

Background: Transient elastography is a noninvasive method for assessing liver stiffness (LS), which can reflect right-sided filling pressure associated with passive liver congestion in patients with HF.

Methods: A prospective, single-center observational study in which LS was measured in consecutive ambulatory patients with heart failure with reduced, mid-range, and recovered left ventricular ejection fraction, between March 2018 and June 2019. Mean follow up was 219 ± 86 days.

Comparison of clinical and histologic findings in daylight photodynamic therapy for skin field cancerization: A randomized controlled four-arm study on physical methods-assisted delivery of methyl aminolevulinate.

Background: Daylight photodynamic therapy (DL-PDT) has similar efficacy to conventional photodynamic therapy in treating actinic keratosis (AKs). Good clinical outcomes have been reported when associated with physical methods such as microneedles, but a comparison of different methods and histologic studies is lacking.

Objectives: To evaluate clinical and histologic modifications induced by standard DL-PDT and compare with DL-PDT associated with physical methods in treating skin field cancerization of the face.

Correlation between Diastolic Function and Endothelial Function in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes and Hypertension.

Background: Endothelial dysfunction may be involved in the pathophysiology of cardiac abnormalities in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM). A correlation between endothelial dysfunction and diastolic dysfunction in patients with type 1 DM has been demonstrated, but this relationship has not been well investigated in type 2 DM.

Objective: Compare groups of patients with type 2 DM and hypertension with and without diastolic dysfunction using endothelial function indexes, and to assess whether correlations exist between the diastolic function and the endothelial function indexes.

Comparison of benazepril and losartan on endothelial function and vascular stiffness in patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus and hypertension: A randomized controlled trial.

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of benazepril and losartan on endothelial function and vascular stiffness, in patients with diabetes mellitus and hypertension.

Materials And Methods: We included hypertensive diabetic patients with an office systolic blood pressure (BP) ⩾ 130 mmHg and/or diastolic BP ⩾ 80 mmHg. Patients were rolled over to amlodipine for 6 weeks, then we performed C-reactive protein assays, BP measurement and vascular tests; next, patients were randomized to benazepril or losartan.

Functional vascular study in hypertensive subjects with type 2 diabetes using losartan or amlodipine.

Background: Antihypertensive drugs are used to control blood pressure (BP) and reduce macro- and microvascular complications in hypertensive patients with diabetes.

Objectives: The present study aimed to compare the functional vascular changes in hypertensive patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus after 6 weeks of treatment with amlodipine or losartan.

Methods: Patients with a previous diagnosis of hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus were randomly divided into 2 groups and evaluated after 6 weeks of treatment with amlodipine (5 mg/day) or losartan (100 mg/day).

Left atrial myxoma associated with obstructive coronary artery disease.

We describe a case of a 67 year-old patient with obstructive coronary artery disease that, in the preoperative survey for inguinal herniorraphy surgery, discovered, by a two-dimensional echocardiogram, a tumor in left atrium, mobile, non-obstructive. The patient underwent a cineangiocoronariography showing severe stenosis in the left anterior descending artery, moderate stenosis in the left circumflex artery, near the origin of the first marginal branch, and a non-obstructive plaque in the right coronary artery. There was also moderate left ventricular dysfunction.