Flecainide is nonselective Na(+) channel blocker which may also inhibit I(Kr), the rapid component of the delayed rectifier. This study was designed to explore if proarrhythmic responses to flecainide noted in cardiac patients may be partly attributed to abnormal changes in repolarization and refractoriness. Monophasic action potential duration (APD) and effective refractory periods (ERP) were assessed at distinct epicardial and endocardial sites along with volume-conducted ECG recordings in isolated perfused guinea-pig heart preparations. Flecainide was found to prolong ventricular repolarization, with effect being greater at the left ventricular compared with the right ventricular epicardium. This change translated to reversal of the normal right ventricular-to-left ventricular transepicardial APD difference determined before drug infusion. An inverse correlation between local epicardial APD and corresponding activation time values seen at baseline was eliminated in flecainide-treated hearts, indicating the activation-to-repolarization uncoupling. Over transmural plane, flecainide produced a greater ERP lengthening at endocardium than epicardium, thus markedly increasing ERP dispersion across ventricular wall. Spontaneous short-lasting episodes of monomorphic ventricular tachycardia were observed in 45% of heart preparations upon flecainide infusion. In conclusion, in nonischemic guinea-pig heart, flecainide-induced proarrhythmia may be partly attributed to abnormal spatial gradients in repolarization and refractoriness and impaired transepicardial activation-to-repolarization coupling.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/FJC.0b013e31826b86cf | DOI Listing |
Visual attribution in medical imaging seeks to make evident the diagnostically-relevant components of a medical image, in contrast to the more common detection of diseased tissue deployed in standard machine vision pipelines (which are less straightforwardly interpretable/explainable to clinicians). We here present a novel generative visual attribution technique, one that leverages latent diffusion models in combination with domain-specific large language models, in order to generate normal counterparts of abnormal images. The discrepancy between the two hence gives rise to a mapping indicating the diagnostically-relevant image components.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Endocrinol (Lausanne)
January 2025
Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China.
Background: The debate persists regarding whether metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) actively contributes to coronary heart disease or merely acts as a passive indicator.
Objective: This research aims to clarify the relationship between liver fat accumulation, as quantified by FLI, and the risk of developing coronary heart disease.
Methods: Conducted from April to November 2011, the REACTION project, spearheaded by the Endocrinology Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, focused on Chinese adults aged 40 and above.
Hellenic J Cardiol
January 2025
Department of Cardiology, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 150001, China. Electronic address:
Purpose: To investigate the modifying role of obesity in the association between abnormal glucose metabolism and atrial fibrillation (AF) risk in older individuals.
Methods: From April 2007 to November 2011, 11663 participants aged ≥60 years were enrolled in Shandong area. Glucose metabolic status were determined using fasting plasma glucose and hemoglobin A1c levels, obesity determined using body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), and visceral fat area (VFA).
J Cardiothorac Surg
January 2025
Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, The Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, 050000, P. R. China.
The absence or dysplasia of the iliac artery(IA) is an exceedingly rare condition, with limited cases documented in the literature. In this report, we present a case of hypoplasia of the right external iliac artery (EIA) in a 69-year-old male patient. The patient presented with right lower abdominal pain attributed to an aneurysm of the right internal iliac artery (IIA), yet notably, there was no evidence of lower limb ischemia at the time of consultation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Gynaecol Obstet
January 2025
FIGO, London, UK.
The incidence of cesarean section is dramatically increasing worldwide, whereas the training opportunities for obstetrician/gynecologists to manage complex cesarean section appear to be decreasing. This may be attributed to changing working hours directives and the increasing use of laparoscopy for gynecological surgical procedures, including in gynecological oncology. Various situations can create surgical difficulties during a cesarean section; however, two of the most frequent are complications from previous cesarean (myometrial defects, with or without placental intrusion and peritoneal adhesions) and the high risk of postpartum hemorrhage (uterine overdistension, abnormal placentation, uterine fibroids).
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