Loop diuretic therapy with or without heart failure: impact on prognosis.

Background And Aims: Many patients are prescribed loop diuretics without a diagnostic record of heart failure. Little is known about their characteristics and prognosis.

Methods: Glasgow regional health records (2009-16) were obtained for adults with cardiovascular disease or taking loop diuretics.

Remote laser-speckle sensing of heart sounds for health assessment and biometric identification.

Assessment of heart sounds is the cornerstone of cardiac examination, but it requires a stethoscope, skills and experience, and a direct contact with the patient. We developed a contactless, machine-learning assisted method for heart-sound identification and quantification based on the remote measurement of the reflected laser speckle from the neck skin surface in healthy individuals. We compare the performance of this method to standard digital stethoscope recordings on an example task of heart-beat sound biometric identification.