Cardiac Tumors: Clinical Perspective and Therapeutic Considerations.

Background: Cardiac tumors rare cardiac disorders with an overall incidence rate < 0.33%. Cardiac tumors can be classified as primary or secondary depending on the origins of tumors.

Variation in primary cesarean delivery rates by individual physician within a single-hospital laborist model.

Background: Laborist practice models are associated with lower rates of cesarean delivery than individual private practice models in several studies; however, this effect is not uniform. Further exploration of laborist models may help us better understand the observed decrease in rates of cesarean delivery in some hospitals that implement a laborist model.

Objective: Our objective was to evaluate the degree of variation in rates of primary cesarean delivery by individual laborists within a single institution that uses a laborist model.

The opposing roles of anti-angiogenic factors in cancer and preeclampsia.

Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy such as preeclampsia present an increasing source of concern during gestation and accumulating evidence suggests there are long-term effects on the subsequent health of the mother and child. While formerly preeclamptic women have increased risk for later cardiovascular disease, they appear to have decreased risk of some cancers. Recent investigations have revealed exciting insights into potential mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of preeclampsia and some of these findings may bear relevance to the attenuated cancer risk reported in the literature.

Aldehyde dehydrogenase-2 (ALDH2) ameliorates chronic alcohol ingestion-induced myocardial insulin resistance and endoplasmic reticulum stress.

Chronic alcohol intake leads to insulin resistance and alcoholic cardiomyopathy, which appears to be a result of the complex interaction between genes and environment. This study was designed to examine the impact of aldehyde dehydrogenase-2 (ALDH2) transgenic overexpression on alcohol-induced insulin resistance and myocardial injury. ALDH2 transgenic mice were produced using chicken beta-actin promoter.

Hypertension produced by placental ischemia in pregnant rats is associated with increased soluble endoglin expression.

Recent clinical studies indicate that an excess of angiostatic factors, such as soluble endoglin (sEng), is related to the occurrence of preeclampsia. Although recent clinical studies report that sEng is increased in preeclamptic women, the mechanisms underlying its overexpression remain unclear. Evidence suggests that hypoxia and induction of heme oxygenase-1 have opposing effects on sEng expression, the former stimulatory and the latter inhibitory.