Prevalence, Clinical Characteristics, and Treatment of Patients with Resistant Hypertension: A Single-Center Study.

Background: Resistant hypertension (HTN) is associated with a high risk of cardiovascular complications. Our study aimed to assess the prevalence, characteristics, and treatment of patients with resistant HTN.

Methods: We screened 4340 consecutive cardiovascular patients hospitalized in our clinic and identified 3762 with HTN.

Recognition of Supraventricular Arrhythmias in Holter ECG Recordings by ECHOView Color Map: A Case Series Study.

Ambulatory 24-72 h Holter ECG monitoring is recommended for patients with suspected arrhythmias, which are often transitory and might remain unseen in resting standard 12-lead ECG. Holter manufacturers provide software diagnostic tools to assist clinicians in evaluating these large amounts of data. Nevertheless, the identification of short arrhythmia events and differentiation of the arrhythmia type might be a problem in limited Holter ECG leads.

Application of Dense Neural Networks for Detection of Atrial Fibrillation and Ranking of Augmented ECG Feature Set.

Considering the significant burden to patients and healthcare systems globally related to atrial fibrillation (AF) complications, the early AF diagnosis is of crucial importance. In the view of prominent perspectives for fast and accurate point-of-care arrhythmia detection, our study optimizes an artificial neural network (NN) classifier and ranks the importance of enhanced 137 diagnostic ECG features computed from time and frequency ECG signal representations of short single-lead strips available in 2017 Physionet/CinC Challenge database. Based on hyperparameters' grid search of densely connected NN layers, we derive the optimal topology with three layers and 128, 32, 4 neurons per layer (DenseNet-3@128-32-4), which presents maximal F1-scores for classification of Normal rhythms (0.

Are Three Weeks of Oral Anticoagulation Sufficient for Safe Cardioversion in Atrial Fibrillation?

Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), lasting >48 h, considered for cardioversion, are recommended ≥3 weeks of oral anticoagulation before sinus rhythm restoration because of high risk of development of left atrial thrombosis (LAT) and stroke. However, the optimal duration of anticoagulation in the presence of overt LAT is unknown. An open-label study aimed to investigate the prevalence of spontaneous echo contrast (SEC) and LAT before and after 3 weeks of direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) treatment.

Physicians' Perceptions of Their Patients' Attitude and Knowledge of Long-Term Oral Anticoagulant Therapy in Bulgaria.

: Oral anticoagulation (OAC) is widely used in daily clinical practice worldwide for various indications. We aimed to explore the perception of Bulgarian clinicians about their patients' attitude and knowledge of long-term OAC, prescribed for atrial fibrillation (AF) and/or known deep venous thrombosis (DVT)/pulmonary embolism (PE). : We performed a cross-sectional study that involved 226 specialists: 187 (82.

Risk Factors, Co-Morbidities and Treatment of In-Hospital Patients with Atrial Fibrillation in Bulgaria.

Background And Objectives: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia worldwide and a major risk factor for cardiovascular complications. Our study aimed to investigate the prevalence, risk factors, demographics, co-morbidities and treatment of AF among in-hospital Bulgarian patients.

Materials And Methods: A cross-sectional study including 1027 consecutive patients ( = 516, 50.

Pericardial Effusion in Obstructive Sleep Apnea without Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension and Daily Hypoxemia - is it Unusual?

Background: Pericardial effusion in chronic hypoxemic lung diseases, such as Obstructive Sleep Apnea syndrome, usually occurs after the development of severe pulmonary arterial hypertension. However, data about the frequency of pericardial effusions in Obstructive Sleep Apnea syndrome without pulmonary arterial hypertension and/or daytime hypoxemia are still scarce, and their pathogenesis is unclear.

Aims: To assess the prevalence of pericardial effusions and their volume and location in patients with obesity and Obstructive Sleep Apnea syndrome without pulmonary arterial hypertension and/or hypoxemia.

Effects of aliskiren on blood pressure and myocardial function assessed by global longitudinal strain in patients with arterial hypertension and diastolic dysfunction.

Objective: To evaluate the effects of aliskiren on blood pressure and myocardial function assessed by global longitudinal strain in patients with uncontrolled arterial hypertension.

Patients And Methods: Forty-five patients were included in the study (29 males, 16 females, mean age 58.7 +/- 12.

Possibilities of signal-averaged orthogonal and vector electrocardiography for locating and size evaluation of acute myocardial infarction with ST-elevation.

Objective: The signal-averaged electrocardiography (SAECG) is known to be a useful tool for extraction and analysis of low-amplitude signal components. We found SAECG may be useful for precise location of the site of the myocardial necrosis and assessment of the severity of impaired left ventricular systolic function of patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarct (STEMI) in the acute phase.

Methods: High-resolution (1 MHz) ECG from 3 groups were collected: healthy controls (20), patients with anterior (17) and inferior STEMI (21).

Dataset of manually measured QT intervals in the electrocardiogram.

Background: The QT interval and the QT dispersion are currently a subject of considerable interest. Cardiac repolarization delay is known to favor the development of arrhythmias. The QT dispersion, defined as the difference between the longest and the shortest QT intervals or as the standard deviation of the QT duration in the 12-lead ECG is assumed to be reliable predictor of cardiovascular mortality.