Circulatory syndrome: an evolution of the metabolic syndrome concept!

The metabolic syndrome has been a useful, though controversial construct in clinical practice as well as a valuable model in order to understand the interactions of diverse cardiovascular risk factors. However the increasing importance of the circulatory system in particular the endothelium, in both connecting and controlling organ function has underlined the limitations of the metabolic syndrome definition. The proposed "Circulatory Syndrome" is an attempt to refine the metabolic syndrome concept by the addition of recently documented markers of cardiovascular disease including renal impairment, microalbuminuria, arterial stiffness, ventricular dysfunction and anaemia to more classic factors including hypertension, dyslipidemia and abnormal glucose metabolism; all of which easily measured in clinical practice.

What's in a name? Brand name confusion and generic medicines.

We need an urgent review of medicines labelling in Australia and New Zealand.

Evaluation of arterial stiffness and pulse wave reflection for cardiovascular risk assessment in diabetic and nondiabetic kidney transplant recipients.

Introduction: Evidence demonstrates that cardiovascular risk reduces after kidney transplantation, but is still a major cause of death. With increasing inclusion of diabetic patients for kidney transplantation, the evaluation of cardiovascular disease in this population becomes more important. We compared arterial stiffness and pulse wave reflection as well as other cardiovascular risk factors in kidney transplant patients with and without diabetes mellitus.

Arterial stiffness in kidney transplant recipients: an overview of methodology and applications.

Introduction: Cardiovascular disease is still a major cause of mortality in kidney transplant patients. This is partially attributed to the nonclassic cardiovascular risk factors including arterial stiffness, an established independent predictor of mortality in several patient populations.

Materials And Methods: An extensive search was performed to review the evolution process of the method for arterial stiffness assessment and sphygmology and their applications in chronic kidney disease before and after kidney transplantation.

Better management of cardiovascular diseases by pulse wave velocity: combining clinical practice with clinical research using evidence-based medicine.

Arterial stiffness measured by pulse wave velocity (PWV) is an accepted strong, independent predictor of cardiovascular events and mortality. However, lack of a reliable reference range has limited its use in clinical practice. In this evidence-based review, we applied published data to develop a PWV risk stratification model and demonstrated its impact on the management of common clinical scenarios.

Disturbed hemodynamic cardiac exercise stress test response in non-smoking, normolipidemic, normotensive, diabetic subjects.

Objective: The hemodynamic response to exercise is affected by diverse factors such as age, gender and exercise load as well as concomitant pathogenic conditions including smoking, hyperlipidemia, hypertension and possibly diabetes. In this study the hemodynamic response to a graded exercise has been evaluated in diabetic and non-diabetic individuals.

Design And Method: In 3170 consecutive non-smoker normolipidemic normotensive patients, referred for the treadmill exercise test (age 25-70 years), the exercise-induced change in heart rate (DeltaHR) and blood pressure (DeltaSBP and DeltaDBP) was evaluated in 176 diabetics (DM) compared to non-diabetics (NDM).

Estimation of an age-specific reference interval for pulse wave velocity: a meta-analysis.

Objective: To estimate an age-specific reference interval for carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), an index of aortic stiffness, and to determine the predictive values of the reference range for detecting those at moderate and high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Design And Methods: We searched MEDLINE using PubMed from 1995 to 2005 for all studies in which Carotid-Femoral PWV was measured using a Complior (Colson, Paris, France) apparatus in Caucasian non-pregnant adults. Twenty-five studies were included, covering 30 groups of subjects; these groups were classified a priori into low (normal), moderate, and high CVD risk categories, with 2008, 5979, and 180 (total 8167) subjects, respectively.