End-systolic and end-diastolic left atrial volume assessment by two-dimensional echocardiography: a comparison study with magnetic resonance imaging.

Background: The left atrial volume (LAV) is an important indicator of the severity of certain diseases, and measuring LAV through the cardiac cycle may enable the evaluation of various left atrium (LA) functional parameters. The results of two-dimensional (2D) echocardiographic LAV measurement methods vary, and no technique is accepted as being optimal.

Objective: This study compared the accuracy of end-systolic and end-diastolic LAV measurements by 2D echocardiography with those obtained by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Comparison of delayed myocardial enhancement in the early and late phase after contrast injection: is it possible to reduce the examination time for myocardial viability study?

Objectives: We studied whether we can obtain a myocardial viability study immediately after contrast injection to reduce the whole cardiac MR examination time.

Materials And Methods: We examined 36 patients with cardiovascular abnormality on comprehensive cardiac MRI. T1-weighted images with inversion recovery (IR) were obtained 5 min after stress perfusion with 0.

Efficacy of spectral presaturation of inversion recovery in evaluating delayed myocardial enhancement.

Objective: Delayed myocardial enhancement is caused by a variety of cardiovascular diseases. The extent of the enhanced area has been examined by the inversion recovery (IR) method, whereby at the inversion time (TI), normal myocardium shows a low signal intensity. In this sequence, as pericardial fat shows a very high intensity, a delayed enhancement just below the pericardium may be indistinct.

Amlodipine improves vascular function in patients with moderate to severe hypertension.

The long-term effects of amlodipine, a calcium channel blocker, were examined in patients with moderate to severe hypertension. Eighteen never-treated patients with moderate to severe essential hypertension (49 +/- 8 years) were studied. In all patients, forearm blood flow (FBF) was measured by plethysmography before and 6 months after amlodipine treatment.

Noninvasive diagnosis of partial atrial standstill using magnetocardiograms.

A 59-year-old woman with partial atrial standstill was studied using magnetocardiograms (MCGs), which revealed through QRS-T subtraction and time-frequency analysis that there was a high-frequency (6 Hz) magnetic source at the low atrial septum. MCGs are useful for noninvasively evaluating the clinical course of patients with atrial fibrillation.

Magnesium sulphate infusion suppresses the cardiac release of noradrenaline during a handgrip stress test.

Background: Magnesium has several important cardiovascular effects, but its effect on cardiac sympathetic efferent neuron activity has not been clarified.

Objectives: To examine the effect of magnesium sulphate infusion on cardiac sympathetic efferent postganglionic neuronal liberation of noradrenaline.

Patients And Methods: Twenty-two patients who underwent cardiac catheterization were randomly allocated to the control group or the magnesium group.