Combining In Vivo Two-Photon and Laser Speckle Microscopy With the Ex Vivo Capillary-Parenchymal Arteriole Preparation as a Novel Approach to Study Neurovascular Coupling.

Objective: Cerebral blood flow (CBF) decline is increasingly recognized as an area of importance for targeting neurodegenerative disorders, yet full understanding of the mechanisms that underlie CBF changes are lacking. Animal models are crucial for expanding our knowledge as methods for studying global CBF and neurovascular coupling in humans are limited and require expensive specialized scanners.

Methods: Use of appropriate animal models can increase our understanding of cerebrovascular function, so we have combined chronic cranial windows with in vivo two-photon and laser speckle microscopy and ex vivo capillary-parenchymal arteriole (CaPA) preparations.

Registries on transcatheter edge-to-edge repair in heart failure: Current evidence and future perspectives.

Aims: Secondary mitral regurgitation (SMR) and tricuspid regurgitation (TR) are the most common valvular heart diseases in patients with heart failure (HF). Transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (TEER) devices designed for treating MR and TR have been successfully tested in randomized controlled trials, but methodological issues have often challenged their interpretation. This manuscript aimed to provide an overview of TEER registries on SMR and TR in HF, highlighting their key features, describing clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients receiving these devices, and exploring the available data limitations.

Metabolomic and transcriptomic analyses revealed potential mechanisms of Anchusa italica Retz. in alleviating cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury via Wnt/β-catenin pathway modulation.

Anchusa italica Retz. (AIR), a traditional herbal remedy, is commonly applied in managing heart and brain disorders. However, its specific function and mechanism in acute cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury (CIRI) are not fully understood.

Cardiopulmonary Substructure Doses are Not Correlated With Cardiorespiratory Fitness Among Breast Cancer Survivors Treated With Contemporary Radiation Therapy.

Purpose: Breast cancer radiation therapy (RT) techniques have historically delivered mean heart doses (MHDs) in the range of 5 Gy, which have been found to predispose patients to cardiopulmonary toxicities. The purpose of this study was to apply artificial intelligence (AI) cardiac substructure auto-segmentation to evaluate the corresponding substructure doses, whether there are laterality- and technique-specific differences in these doses, and if the doses are significantly associated with cardiorespiratory fitness after state-of-the-art RT planning and delivery for breast cancer.

Methods And Materials: Cardiopulmonary substructures were AI auto-segmented.

Alterations in the gut microbiome and metabolism with doxorubicin-induced heart failure severity.

Objective: This study aimed to explore the changes in gut microbiota and its metabolites in different pathophysiological stages of doxorubicin (DOX)-induced heart failure (DIHF) and the relationship between gut microbiota and metabolites in various degrees of DIHF.

Materials And Methods: C57BL/6 J mice were injected intraperitoneally with 5 mg/kg of DOX once a week for 5 consecutive weeks. At different times after injection, the cardiac function and histopathological analysis was conducted, the serum levels of creatine kinase (CK), CK-MB, lactic dehydrogenase, and cardiac troponin T were determined.

Factors predictive of serum cortisol in pediatric patients with acute physiological stress: a cohort study.

Measuring cortisol is crucial for assessing adrenal function in patients under stress; however, its value can fluctuate owing to various clinical factors. This study aimed to identify predictors of cortisol levels in pediatric patients with acute physiological stress. Children who were urgently admitted to the general ward or pediatric intensive care unit for acute illness or postoperative care were enrolled, while those with suspected adrenal function abnormalities or on current steroid therapy were excluded.

Advanced Heart Failure Therapies in Neuromuscular Diseases.

Purpose Of Review: The main objective of this review article is to discuss the prevalence, utilization, and outcomes associated with advanced heart failure therapies among patients with neuromuscular disorders.

Recent Findings: Neuromuscular disorders often have multisystem involvement with a high prevalence of cardiovascular pathology. With the improvement in management of respiratory related complications, heart failure is now the leading cause of mortality in this patient population.

Rhythm Control Better Prevents Stroke than Rate Control in Patients with Concomitant Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy and Atrial Fibrillation: A Nationwide Population Based Cohort Study with Long-Term Follow-Up.

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) increases the risks of stroke and mortality. It remains unclear whether rhythm control reduces the risk of stroke in patients with AF concomitant with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).

Methods: We identified AF patients with HCM who were ≥ 18 years old in the Taiwan National Health Insurance Database.

2025 Update Consensus of Tc-Pyrophosphate Scintigraphy in the Transthyretin Cardiac Amyloidosis from the Taiwan Society of Cardiology and the Society of Nuclear Medicine of the Republic of China.

This 2025 updated consensus outlines the diagnostic strategy for transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM). Given that ATTR-CM is a significant contributor to heart failure, this article emphasizes the importance of making an early and precise diagnosis, particularly as new therapeutic options become available. Highlighting the critical importance of an early and accurate diagnosis, particularly in light of emerging therapeutic modalities, this consensus underscores the central role of Tc-pyrophosphate (PYP) scintigraphy as a non-invasive diagnostic tool.

Decellularization of fish tissues for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications.

Decellularization is the process of obtaining acellular tissues with low immunogenic cellular components from animals or plants while maximizing the retention of the native extracellular matrix structure, mechanical integrity and bioactivity. The decellularized tissue obtained through the tissue decellularization technique retains the structure and bioactive components of its native tissue; it not only exhibits comparatively strong mechanical properties, low immunogenicity and good biocompatibility but also stimulates neovascularization at the implantation site and regulates the polarization process of recruited macrophages, thereby promoting the regeneration of damaged tissue. Consequently, many commercial products have been developed as promising therapeutic strategies for the treatment of different tissue defects and lesions, such as wounds, dura, bone and cartilage defects, nerve injuries, myocardial infarction, urethral strictures, corneal blindness and other orthopedic applications.

Image reconstruction impacts haemodynamic parameters derived from 4D flow magnetic resonance imaging with compressed sensing.

Aims: 4D blood flow measurements by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) can be used to simplify blood flow assessment. Compressed sensing (CS) can provide better flow measurements than conventional parallel imaging (PI), but clinical validation is needed. This study aimed to validate stroke volume (SV) measurements by 4D-CS in healthy volunteers and patients while also investigating the influence of the CS image reconstruction parameter on haemodynamic parameters.

C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 4-directed PET signal in the arterial tree is not consistently linked to calcified plaque burden and cardiovascular risk.

To establish the extent, distribution and frequency of in-vivo vessel wall [Ga]Ga-PentixaFor uptake and to determine its relationship with calcified atherosclerotic plaque burden (CAP) and cardiovascular risk factors (CVRF). 65 oncological patients undergoing [Ga]Ga-PentixaFor PET/CT were assessed. Radiotracer uptake (target-to-background ratio [TBR]) and CAP burden (including number of CAP sites, calcification circumference and thickness) in seven major vessel segments per patient were determined.

Secondary insults prevalence, co-occurrence and relationship with outcome after severe TBI.

Introduction: Secondary insults due to high intracranial pressure (ICP), low cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) and impaired cerebral pressure reactivity (PRx) predict outcome after severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Research Question: What is the prevalence, co-occurrence and prognostic importance of secondary insults due to deranged ICP, CPP or PRx after TBI.

Material And Methods: Severe TBI patients requiring ICP monitoring were included.

Measuring the Impact of Healthcare Provider Availability on Quality of Care and Disease Burden in Ohio: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: Chronic lower respiratory disease, heart disease, and diabetes have a higher prevalence in rural areas. Previous studies raise concerns that a lower supply of physicians is associated with negative outcomes.

Objective: To assess disease burden across the 88 counties in Ohio, including Appalachian and non-Appalachian counties, and examine associations with the number of healthcare providers.

Sepsis-Associated Cardiomyopathy: Long-Term Prognosis, Management, and Guideline-Directed Medical Therapy.

Purpose Of Review: To explore the definitions of sepsis-induced cardiomyopathy and how that impacts interpretation of the available data and considerations of long-term prognosis and management.

Recent Findings: The field of sepsis-induced cardiomyopathy has been hampered by lack of consensus about its proper definition, with a great deal of heterogeneity in clinical trial data in both individual studies and meta-analyses and consequent disparity of estimates of incidence, prognosis, and clinical significance. New diagnostic techniques, while potentially shedding light on pathophysiology, have only exacerbated these challenges.

Effect of magnetic field strength and segmentation variability on the reproducibility and repeatability of radiomic texture features in cardiovascular magnetic resonance parametric mapping.

Our study aims to assess the robustness of myocardial radiomic texture features (RTF) to segmentation variability and variations across scanners with different field strengths, addressing concerns about reliability in clinical practices. We conducted a retrospective analysis on 45 pairs of CMR T1 maps from 15 healthy volunteers using 1.5 T and 3 T Siemens scanners.

Liver T1 mapping in Fontan patients and patients with biventricular congenital heart disease - insights into the effects of venous congestions on diffuse liver disease.

T1 relaxation time quantification on parametric maps is routinely used in cardiac imaging and may serve as a non-invasive biomarker for diffuse liver disease. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between liver T1 values and cardiac function in patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) and compared patients with a biventricular circulation (BVC) to those with a Fontan circulation (FC). Magnetic resonance images from patients with CHD, obtained between June and December 2023 on a 1.

Mechanisms and pharmacotherapy of cancer cachexia-associated anorexia.

Cachexia is a multifactorial metabolic syndrome characterized by weight and skeletal muscle loss caused by underlying illnesses such as cancer, heart failure, and renal failure. Inflammation, insulin resistance, increased muscle protein degradation, decreased food intake, and anorexia are the primary pathophysiological drivers of cachexia. Cachexia causes physical deterioration and functional impairment, loss of quality of life, lower response to active treatment, and ultimately morbidity and mortality, while the difficulties in tackling cachexia in its advanced phases and the heterogeneity of the syndrome among patients require an individualized and multidisciplinary approach from an early stage.

Clinical Outcomes According to the Extent of Atherosclerotic Disease in Female Patients Undergoing Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement: An Analysis From the WIN-TAVI Registry.

Background: Limited data exist on the impact of polyvascular disease (PolyVD) on clinical outcomes in female patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). We therefore sought to investigate clinical outcomes in women with versus without PolyVD undergoing TAVR.

Methods: Female participants from the multicentre Women's International Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation (WIN-TAVI) registry were categorized based on the presence or absence of PolyVD.

Real-time continuous glucose monitoring improves postoperative glucose control in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting: A randomized clinical trial.

Background: Effective glycaemic control following cardiac surgery improves clinical outcomes, and continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) might be a valuable tool in achieving this objective. We investigated the effect of real-time CGM and telemonitoring on postoperative glycaemic control in people with type 2 diabetes (T2D) after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG).

Methods: In this randomized clinical trial (RCT), adults with T2D undergoing CABG were assigned to either a test group utilizing real-time CGM (Dexcom G6) and telemetry for glycaemic control, or a control group with blinded CGM measures, relying on point-of-care measures.

Cardiotoxicity and peri-operative considerations in immune checkpoint inhibitor and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy: a narrative review.

Introduction: Immunotherapy has transformed cancer treatment, particularly with immune checkpoint inhibitors and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy. Despite their efficacy, these therapies can induce cardiotoxicity, presenting significant clinical challenges. Immune checkpoint inhibitors can cause myocarditis; pericarditis; arrhythmias; and myocardial infarction through immune-mediated inflammation.