Publications by authors named "Thu Thao Le"

This research employs bibliometric and text-mining analysis to explore artificial intelligence (AI) advancements within surgical procedures. The growing significance of AI in healthcare underscores the need for healthcare managers to prioritize investments in this technology. To assess the increasing impact of AI on surgical practices through a comprehensive analysis of scientific literature, providing insights that can guide managerial decision-making in adopting AI solutions.

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Aims: Non-invasive methods to quantify pulmonary congestion are lacking in clinical practice. Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) lung water density (LWD) mapping is accurate and reproducible and has prognostic value. However, it is not known whether LWD is associated with routinely acquired CMR parameters.

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Background: Heterogenous deposition and homeostasis roles of physiologic and ectopic adipose tissues underscore the impact of fat compartmentalization on cardiometabolic risk. We aimed to characterize the distribution of abdominal visceral adipose tissue (VAT), subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT), epicardial adipose tissue (EAT), and liver fat on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and evaluate their associations with anthropometric indices and adverse cardiac remodeling.

Methods: In this cross-sectional observational study, 149 Asian adults (57.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study addresses the lack of population-specific cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) reference ranges, which is important for clinical care.
  • It provides CMR reference ranges based on data from 9,088 healthy individuals, considering age, sex, and ethnicity, thus enhancing the understanding of heart metrics across diverse demographics.
  • The analysis involved advanced software and various imaging techniques, resulting in a comprehensive set of healthy CMR-derived volumetric reference ranges that can be applied in clinical settings.
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  • Heart failure (HF) and diabetes worsen each other’s outcomes, and this study evaluated global longitudinal strain (GLS) as a prognostic marker in HF patients with diabetes.
  • In a study of 315 HF patients, those with diabetes showed significantly worse cardiovascular indicators, such as higher late gadolinium enhancement rates and elevated biomarker levels compared to non-diabetic patients.
  • The results indicated that patients with diabetes not only had poorer health indicators but also a worse prognosis, with GLS and soluble ST2 biomarkers emerging as independent prognostic factors for adverse outcomes.
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Background: Diffuse interstitial myocardial fibrosis is a key common pathological manifestation in hypertensive heart disease (HHD) progressing to heart failure (HF). Angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitors (ARNi), now a front-line treatment for HF, confer benefits independent of blood pressure, signifying a multifactorial mode of action beyond hemodynamic regulation. We aim to test the hypothesis that compared with angiotensin II receptor blockade (ARB) alone, ARNi is more effective in regressing diffuse interstitial myocardial fibrosis in HHD.

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Background: Compared with patients with hypertension only, those with hypertension and diabetes (HTN/DM) have worse prognosis. We aimed to characterize morphological differences between hypertension and HTN/DM using cardiovascular magnetic resonance; and compare differentially expressed proteins associated with myocardial fibrosis using high throughput multiplex assays.

Methods: Asymptomatic patients underwent cardiovascular magnetic resonance: 438 patients with hypertension (60±8 years; 59% males) and 167 age- and sex-matched patients with HTN/DM (60±10 years; 64% males).

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Background: The prognostic significance of focal and diffuse myocardial fibrosis in patients with cardiovascular risk factors is unclear.

Methods: REMODEL (Response of the Myocardium to Hypertrophic Conditions in the Adult Population) is an observational cohort of asymptomatic patients with essential hypertension. All participants underwent cardiovascular magnetic resonance to assess for myocardial fibrosis: nonischemic late gadolinium enhancement (LGE), native myocardial T1, postcontrast myocardial T1, extracellular volume fraction including/excluding LGE regions, interstitial volume (extracellular volume×myocardial volume), and interstitial/myocyte ratio.

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Structural and functional alterations in the microcirculation by systemic hypertension can cause significant organ damage at the eye, heart, brain, and kidneys. As the retina is the only tissue in the body that allows direct imaging of small vessels, the relationship of hypertensive retinopathy signs with development of disease states in other organs have been extensively studied; large-scale epidemiological studies using fundus photography and advanced semi-automated analysis software have reported the association of retinopathy signs with hypertensive end-organ damage includes the following: stroke, dementia, and coronary heart disease. Although yielding much useful information, the vessels assessed from fundus photographs remain limited to the larger retinal arterioles and venules, and abnormalities observed may not be that of the earliest changes.

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Background This study examined the associations between quantitative optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) parameters and myocardial abnormalities as documented on cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging in patients with systemic hypertension. Methods and Results We conducted a cross-sectional study of 118 adults with hypertension (197 eyes). Patients underwent cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging and OCTA (PLEX Elite 9000, Carl Zeiss Meditec).

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Background: The quantitative measures used to assess the performance of automated methods often do not reflect the clinical acceptability of contouring. A quality-based assessment of automated cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) segmentation more relevant to clinical practice is therefore needed.

Objective: We propose a new method for assessing the quality of machine learning (ML) outputs.

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Left ventricular ejection fraction is the conventional measure used to guide heart failure management, regardless of underlying etiology. Left ventricular global longitudinal strain (LV-GLS) by speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) is a more sensitive measure of intrinsic myocardial function. We aim to establish LV-GLS as a marker of replacement myocardial fibrosis on cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) and validate the prognostic value of LV-GLS thresholds associated with fibrosis.

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Multiple studies have compared various optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) parameters in participants with systemic hypertension vs. controls and have presented discordant findings. We conducted a meta-analysis to pool together data from different studies to generate an overall effect size and find out whether OCTA parameter(s) significantly differed in participants with systemic hypertension as compared to controls.

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Background: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is defined as left ventricular end-diastolic maximal wall thickness (WT) ≥15.0 mm, without accounting for ethnicity, sex, and body size. It is well-established that Asians have smaller hearts than do Caucasians.

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Myocardial viability assessment in revascularization of ischemic heart failure remains controversial. This study evaluated the prognostic utility of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) in ischemic heart failure. This study retrospectively analyzed subjects with ischemic heart failure and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) ≤35%, who underwent CMR at a single center in 2004-2014 before undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) or optimal medical therapy (OMT).

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Background: Stress cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) offers assessment of ventricular function, myocardial perfusion and viability in a single examination to detect coronary artery disease (CAD). We developed an in-scanner exercise stress CMR (ExCMR) protocol using supine cycle ergometer and aimed to examine the diagnostic value of a multiparametric approach in patients with suspected CAD, compared with invasive fractional flow reserve (FFR) as the reference gold standard.

Methods: In this single-centre prospective study, patients who had symptoms of angina and at least one cardiovascular disease risk factor underwent both ExCMR and invasive angiography with FFR.

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Article Synopsis
  • A study was conducted using non-invasive SS-OCTA to examine the choriocapillaris microvasculature in 41 healthy individuals and 71 hypertensive patients, aiming to find correlations with blood pressure (BP) and kidney function parameters.
  • In hypertensive patients with poorly controlled BP, there were larger and fewer choriocapillaris flow deficits (CFD) compared to those with good BP control and healthy controls.
  • Findings revealed that higher systolic BP, lower estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), and higher urine microalbumin/creatinine ratio (MCR) were linked to larger areas and numbers of CFD, suggesting SS-OCTA could serve as a valuable tool for identifying
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Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and medical imaging can be integrated to derive some important hemodynamic parameters such as wall shear stress (WSS). However, CFD suffers from a relatively long computational time that usually varies from dozens of minutes to hours. Machine learning is a popular tool that has been applied to many fields, and it can predict outcomes fast and even instantaneously in most applications.

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Background: To assess the genetic architecture of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) in patients of predominantly Chinese ancestry.

Methods: We sequenced HCM disease genes in Singaporean patients (n=224) and Singaporean controls (n=3634), compared findings with additional populations and White HCM cohorts (n=6179), and performed in vitro functional studies.

Results: Singaporean HCM patients had significantly fewer confidently interpreted HCM disease variants (pathogenic/likely pathogenic: 18%, <0.

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We report a case of coronary artery compression and athlete's heart in a patient with a history of transposition of the great arteries. We present the diagnostic dilemmas and demonstrate the use of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and cycle-ergometer stress cardiac magnetic resonance in the management of our patient. ().

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Aims: Hypertensive left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is associated with increased cardiovascular events. We previously developed the remodelling index (RI) that incorporated left ventricular (LV) volume and wall-thickness in a single measure of advanced hypertrophy in hypertensive patients. This study examined the prognostic potential of the RI in reference to contemporary LVH classifications.

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Background Increased left ventricular (LV) mass is characterized by increased myocardial wall thickness and/or ventricular dilatation that is associated with worse outcomes. We aim to comprehensively compare sex-stratified associations between measures of LV remodeling and increasing LV mass in the general population. Methods and Results Participants were prospectively recruited in the National Heart Center Singapore Biobank to examine health and cardiovascular risk factors in the general population.

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Objectives: The imaging features of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) overlap with physiological exercise-induced cardiac remodeling in active and otherwise healthy individuals. Distinguishing the two conditions is challenging. This study examined the diagnostic and prognostic roles of exercise stress imaging in asymptomatic patients with suspected DCM.

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Article Synopsis
  • A correction has been published for the article, which is linked in both the HTML and PDF versions.
  • The error identified in the original paper has now been corrected.
  • Readers are encouraged to refer to the updated version for accurate information.
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