Hypertension in patients with severe aortic stenosis: emphasis on antihypertensive treatment and the risk of syncope.

Published guidelines for the management of hypertension (HTN) do not discuss HTN in patients with aortic stenosis (AS). Some clinicians have considered severe AS to be a relative contraindication to the use of antihypertensive agents. We sought to determine the incidence of syncope in AS patients who were treated with antihypertensive agents.

Adverse structural remodeling of the left ventricle and ventricular arrhythmias in patients with depressed ejection fraction.

Background: The relationship of life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias to specific patterns of adverse LV remodeling has not been reported. We examined the relationship of ventricular tachycardia and/or fibrillation (VT/VF) to the pattern of left ventricular (LV) structural remodeling and to the degree of LV dysfunction in patients with a low ejection fraction (EF).

Methods And Results: Data from 127 patients with a low EF (≤0.

Prevalence and clinical characteristics of nondilated cardiomyopathy and the effect of atrial fibrillation.

The treatment of patients with chronic heart failure and those with asymptomatic left ventricular (LV) dysfunction has focused primarily on patients with LV enlargement and a low ejection fraction (EF). Little attention has been paid to those with a normal chamber size and a low EF. We sought to examine the LV geometry and clinical characteristics in such patients with nondilated cardiomyopathy.