Antithrombotic Therapy Following Structural Heart Disease Interventions: Current Status and Future Directions.

Interventions in structural heart disease cover many catheter-based procedures for congenital and acquired conditions including valvular diseases, septal defects, arterial or venous obstructions, and fistulas. Among the available procedures, the most common are aortic valve implantation, mitral or tricuspid valve repair/implantation, left atrial appendage occlusion, and patent foramen ovale closure. Antithrombotic therapy for transcatheter structural heart disease interventions aims to prevent thromboembolic events and reduce the risk of short-term and long-term complications.

Recurrent Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy due to Pheochromocytoma Managed With Venoarterial Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation.

Pheochromocytoma-induced Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a rare but life-threatening condition, caused by excessive plasma catecholamine levels, resulting in acute myocardial dysfunction. Clinical presentation includes a rapid development of heart failure due to regional wall motion abnormalities (most commonly affecting all mid to apical left ventricle (LV) wall segments) causing the "octopus-trap-like" LV shape. A 45-year-old female patient presented with acute cardiogenic shock of non-ischemic etiology.

Synchronous Left Ventricular and Endocranial Mass.

Myocardial cysts represent a miscellaneous and infrequent spectrum of conditions, with each of them coming from a different etiological background. Congenital myocardial cysts, neoplasia, cysts of infectious origin (bacterial, viral, or parasitic), and cardiac pathologies that may fake cystic content are all encompassed in this group. Although most patients are asymptomatic, some may occasionally present with obstruction, valvular dysfunction, or heart failure.

Myocarditis Related to the Use of Mesalazine.

Myocarditis is a rare complication of therapy with mesalazine, a drug traditionally used in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. We report a case of a 32-year-old man with a recent diagnosis of ulcerative colitis, who presented to our hospital with chest pain and elevated troponin, 12 days following initiation of mesalazine. Diagnosis of myocarditis was confirmed with cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR), which showed subepicardial gadolinium enhancement in the basal lateral/inferolateral segment of the heart.

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: A Cardiovascular Challenge Becoming a Contemporary Treatable Disease.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is one of the most common genetic inherited diseases of myocardium, which is caused by mutation in genes encoding proteins for the cardiac sarcomere. It is the most frequent cause of sudden death in young people and trained athletes. All diagnostic methods, including heart catheterization, transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography, magnetic resonance imaging, genetic counseling and tissue biopsy are required for risk and therapy stratification and should be individualized depending on phenotype and genotype.