Human experience with transvenous biventricular defibrillation using an electrode in a left ventricular vein.

This study investigated the safety and feasibility of transvenous biventricular defibrillation in ICD patients. Some patients may have high DFTs due to weak shock field intensity on the LV. Animal studies showed a LV shocking electrode dramatically lowered DFTs.

Transvenous biventricular defibrillation halves energy requirements in patients.

Background: Defibrillation thresholds (DFT) with standard implantable cardioverter-defibrillator leads in the right ventricle (RV) may be determined by weak shock field intensity in the myocardium of the left ventricle (LV). Adding a shocking electrode in a coronary vein on the middle of the LV free wall, thereby establishing biventricular defibrillation, substantially reduced defibrillation requirements in animals. We investigated the feasibility of this approach in 24 patients receiving an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator using a prototype over-the-wire temporary LV defibrillation lead.

Comparison of magnetic resonance real-time imaging of left ventricular function with conventional magnetic resonance imaging and echocardiography.

This study analyzes the accuracy of a new real-time magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique (acquisition duration, 62 ms/image) and echocardiography for the determination of left ventricular (LV) end-diastolic volume, end-systolic volume, ejection fraction, and muscle mass when compared with turbo gradient echo imaging as the reference standard. Thirty-four patients were examined with digital echocardiography, standard, and real-time MRI. A close correlation was found between the results of real-time imaging and the reference standard for end-diastolic volume, end-systolic volume, and ejection fraction (r >0.

Should stimulation site be tailored in the individual heart failure patient?

Right ventricular pacing at various sites and shortened atrioventricular (AV) delay has failed to demonstrate a convincing short-term and long-term improvement of left ventricular function. Left-ventricular-based stimulation offers a new therapeutic option for patients with symptomatic congestive heart failure and conduction disturbances, especially of left bundle-branch block configuration. Left ventricular mechanical improvement seems mainly dependent on the pacing site, in addition to optimizing the AV delay.

Functional MRI in ischemic heart disease based on detection of contraction abnormalities.

Even though several non-invasive techniques are available for the assessment of coronary artery disease and the detection of myocardial ischemia, many coronary angiograms yield negative results, thus, warranting higher accuracy for non-invasive tests. The detection of obstructive coronary artery disease is only possible during physical or pharmacological stress. Currently, the assessment of wall motion abnormalities by echocardiography is clinically the most widely used method.

Optimization of realtime adaptive navigator correction for 3D magnetic resonance coronary angiography.

Breathing motion artifacts reduce the quality of MR coronary artery images. Real-time adaptive navigator correction with different correction factors (0%, 30%, 60%, 80% of diaphragmatic displacement) was used to correct for respiratory motion in 3D coronary artery imaging. Significant improvements of image quality were achieved by adaptive motion correction in comparison with conventional navigator gating.

New algorithmic approaches to protein spot detection and pattern matching in two-dimensional electrophoresis gel databases.

Protein spot identification in two-dimensional electrophoresis gels can be supported by the comparison of gel images accessible in different World Wide Web two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) gel protein databases. The comparison may be performed either by visual cross-matching between gel images or by automatic recognition of similar protein spot patterns. A prerequisite for the automatic point pattern matching approach is the detection of protein spots yielding the x(s),y(s) coordinates and integrated spot intensities i(s).

Representation of amino acid sequences as two-dimensional point patterns.

An algorithm for the representation of amino acid sequences as two-dimensional point patterns (2-D plot) is described. The algorithm is based on chaos game representation (CGR) for DNA sequences and was extended for amino acid sequences. The 2-D plot depicts the sequentiality of amino acids and the amino acid composition of a protein.

Dilated cardiomyopathy-associated proteins and their presentation in a WWW-accessible two-dimensional gel protein database.

High resolution two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) and computer-assisted image analysis were used to screen 13 patients suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) versus 15 control patients for quantitative and qualitative differences in their myocardial protein expression. Right atrial tissue samples were obtained from end-stage failing explanted hearts and control hearts. Fifty-two spots differed significantly in average intensity between the DCM and the control groups.