Percutaneous device closure of atrial septal defect results in very early and sustained changes of right and left heart function.

Objectives: To investigate the echocardiographic effects of percutaneous closure of secundum atrial septal defect (ASD) in adults and assess which pre-closure parameters predict good response to closure.

Background: ASD is a common congenital heart disease often undiscovered until adulthood. ASD closure has been revolutionized by the use of percutaneous devices.

Estimation of errors in determining intrathoracic blood volume using the single transpulmonary thermal dilution technique in hypovolemic shock.

Background: The transpulmonary thermal dilution technique has been widely adopted for monitoring cardiac preload and extravascular lung water in critically ill patients. This method assumes intrathoracic blood volume (ITBV) to be a fixed proportion of global end-diastolic volume (GEDV). This study determines the relation between GEDV and ITBV under normovolemic and hypovolemic conditions and quantifies the errors in estimating ITBV.

Voice abnormality in adults with congenital and adult-acquired growth hormone deficiency.

Context: Adult males with congenital, untreated, severe GH deficiency (GHD) due to genetic GHRH receptor deficiency exhibit distinctive, high-pitched, and raspy voice characteristics.

Objective/design: To determine the physical underpinning of this phenomenon, we performed voice recordings, translarynx impedance measurements, spectral analysis, and estimates of spectral complexity [approximate entropy (ApEn)] in four affected men. Results were compared with those obtained in four men with untreated adult-onset GHD and a normal male population.

Estimation of errors in determining intrathoracic blood volume using thermal dilution in pigs with acute lung injury and haemorrhage.

Background: Global end diastolic volume (GEDV) has a constant and predictable relationship to intrathoracic blood volume (ITBV). The present study assesses the difference between ITBV derived from GEDV and ITBV measured directly in pigs with acute lung injury (ALI) and mild haemorrhage.

Methods: We caused ALI in 12 anaesthetized pigs by i.

Spectral pattern complexity analysis and the quantification of voice normality in healthy and radiotherapy patient groups.

Vocal fold functionality may alter in response to direct radiotherapy or indirectly by perturbation of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis. Perceptual assessment of voice quality is difficult to summarise in a single, reliable figure of normality and normality itself is undefined. In this study spectral analysis of vocal fold vibration, based on impedance variations measured across the larynx using an electro-glottogram, is used to build a single parameter description of standard vowel phonation in the normal male population.