Does Cardiac Function Improvement With Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting Reduce All-Cause Mortality?

Background: The effect of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) on cardiac function improvement remains controversial. Furthermore, recent evidence suggests that improvement in cardiac function after CABG does not improve life expectancy. This study aimed to examine whether CABG improved cardiac function and how this improvement influenced all-cause mortality and to compare patient prognosis according to preoperative cardiac function.

Cardiac Presynaptic Sympathetic Nervous Function Evaluated by Cardiac PET in Patients with Chronotropic Incompetence Without Heart Failure.

Chronotropic incompetence (CTI), the inability of the heart to increase its rate with increased activity, leads to exercise intolerance and predicts overall mortality. We previously reported that cardiac β-adrenergic receptor downregulation occurs in patients with CTI without heart failure (HF), indicating postsynaptic sympathetic nervous dysfunction. However, cardiac presynaptic sympathetic nervous system function in CTI is not fully understood.

Quantification of uncertainties in reference and relative dose measurements, dose calculations, and patient setup in modern external beam radiotherapy.

Uncertainties in the steps of external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) affect patient outcomes. However, few studies have investigated major contributors to these uncertainties. This study investigated factors contributing to reducing uncertainty in delivering a dose to a target volume.

Ventricular rupture during the removal of Impella 5.5 in a patient with fulminant myocarditis.

Unlabelled: Ventricular perforation or rupture caused by Impella (Abiomed Inc., Danvers, MA, USA) is extremely rare. The Japanese registry of Impella usage reported that the incidence of perforation was 0.