Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0018799 (heart disease)
 34,133 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

;Primary' pulmonary hypertension, which is rare in western countries, was found to be relatively common in Ceylon. The clinical and haemodynamic features were studied. There were two distinct types of the disease, malignant and benign. Patients with the malignant form of the disease had a rapidly progressive illness of short duration and an invariably fatal outcome. Those with the benign form gave a long history and, in spite of severe pulmonary hypertension, were only slightly disabled. They seemed to tolerate the disease better. An important factor which determined the clinical course of the disease was the patency of the foramen ovale. This appeared to act as a safety valve permitting a right-to-left shunt in times of stress. The foramen ovale was closed in all patients with the malignant type. The therapeutic implications of this need further study. Many patients with ;primary' pulmonary hypertension had an unusually high eosinophil count (normal range for Ceylon, 0-500 per cu.mm.). Patients in hospitals often have higher counts ranging from 0-1000 per cu.mm. due to intestinal parasitic infestation. Patients with ;primary' pulmonary hypertension were found to have a significantly higher mean eosinophil count than age-matched, sex-matched controls admitted to the Cardiology Unit with chronic rheumatic heart disease and congenital heart disease. The higher count was not due to intestinal parasitic infestation, and none of the other known causes of a raised eosinophil count were present. Four patients had eosinophil counts over 3,000 per cu.mm., the range commonly associated with tropical pulmonary eosinophilia, a disease caused by filariasis. These patients did not manifest any of the symptoms of tropical pulmonary eosinophilia. Patients with ;primary' pulmonary hypertension were examined for evidence of filariasis (clinical, haematological, and serological). Volunteers from among patients with tropical pulmonary eosinophilia and symptom-free patients positive for Wuchereria bancrofti microfilaria were similarly tested and also catheterized for evidence of pulmonary hypertension. The results of these investigations and their significance are discussed. The geographical incidence of ;primary' pulmonary hypertension and filariasis was similar. Filarial worms are known to cause pulmonary hypertension in animals. There is sufficient evidence to suspect that the same may be true in humans. This may explain the high incidence of the disease in Ceylon and its unusually high prevalence among men.
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PMID:"Primary" pulmonary hypertension, eosinophilia, and filariasis in Ceylon. 543 14

Evolution is assumed to promote the survival of the fittest by the greater success of the reproductive potential of those with the characteristics most suited to their environment. Little thought is given to how those least adapted fail to survive to reproduce. If the species, rather than the individual, has a drive to adaptation and survival, there should be a specific mechanism for those least adapted to withdraw from life. The immunological changes accompanying depression may facilitate heart disease, infection, parasitic infestation or other ill health, so that depression is a mechanism for those least resilient, or faced with most adversity, to succumb to illness. If depression is a state facilitating withdrawal from competition for reproductive success, major depressive illness may be the inappropriate and spontaneous occurrence of a mental state which has advantages for the species in allowing those 'least fit' to fail to survive. This hypothesis gives an empirically testable challenge to the view that the species has no evolutionary drive to survival and increased adaptedness to the environment, as well as explaining the more and more frequent occurrence of a specific mental state and its associated changes in the immune system.
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PMID:Depression: immunological resignation of the will to live? 948 76

A specific treatment for Chagas' disease has not yet been discovered, even though the condition is endemic in large parts of the Region of the Americas. Earlier studies have addressed the possibility that the sulfatide galactocerebroside in Trypanosoma cruzi behaves as an immunogen involved in the production of the high antisulfatide antibody levels found in patients with chronic infestation with the parasite. This may be an important factor in the pathogenesis of the cardiac symptoms and peripheral neuropathy seen in Chagas' disease, which is the most important cause of myocarditis in Central and South America and the second most important cause of heart failure in several of the countries located in these subregions. The present study was conducted in order to ascertain whether patients with Chagas' disease and other patients not afflicted with the ailment differ insofar as the presence of antibodies against sulfatide is concerned, and it describes antisulfatide antibody levels in 124 hospital patients (74 men and 50 women) between the ages of 15 and 94 who were in the cardiology unit of Vargas Hospital in Caracas from 1 July to 30 June 1995. Antisulfatide antibody titers were determined by means of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), and the antigen employed was sulfatide cerebroside obtained from bovine brain tissue. Of the 124 patients under study, 39 (31.5%) suffered from Chagas' disease and had antisulfatide antibody levels higher than those detected in patients without Chagas (P = 0.0298) and in 28 seemingly healthy controls (P = 0.0035). Serum levels of antisulfatide antibodies in patients with other forms of heart disease were also compared with those seen in the control group, and significantly higher levels were found in patients with acute ischemic heart disease (P = 0.0049), rheumatic valvular heart disease (P = 0.0075), chronic ischemic heart disease (P = 0.0464) and bradiarrythmias (P = 0.0157), and significantly lower ones in subjects with hypertensive heart disease (P = 0.0367). These antibody levels showed no correlation with clinical or paraclinical variables indicative of the degree of cardiac compromise. Our results support the notion that antibodies against sulfatide may play a role in the pathogenesis of Chagas' cardiomyopathy and other forms of heart disease and should be further studied in an effort to determine their potential role in these processes.
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PMID:[Anti-sulfatide antibody titers in patients with chronic Chagas disease and other forms of cardiopathy]. 960 14

The study covers a group of 100 asymptomatic blood donors (14 women and 86 men) with positive serological test for Chagas' disease. All of them were living in urban non endemic areas at the moment of the test, but before they had lived in endemic areas. Patients with coronary heart disease, congenital heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, alcoholism or thyroid disease were not included. The sample was split in two groups: Group I: 23 patients (aged 41.95 +/- 10.52) with evidence of myocardial involvement at physical examination, chest roentgenograms and/or EKG, that we considered inherent to Chagas cardiopathy; and Group II: 77 patients (aged 38.36 +/- 10.57) without abnormal findings. There were no significant differences between the two groups in age, sex, type of house in the endemic area and familial history of Chagas' disease. We found significant differences in the period of residence in endemic areas of Chagas' disease (Group I 21.26 years +/- 7.21 vs Group II: 15.56 years +/- 5.91; p = 0.0015). Additionally, patients in Group I were more frequently able to describe or recognize the transmitting insect than patients in group II (p = 0.05) and to accept the possibility of a triatomide bite (p = 0.024). In group I, more people were coming from Santiago del Estero province, an area with a large bug infection. The results of our research suggest that the myocar-dial damage in patients with positive serological test for Chagas' disease is more likely when there is a larger exposure to the transmitting insect, and when its infestation is larger. All of this, probably, as a consequence of incoulation reiterations.
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PMID:[Chagas disease in blood donors]. 967 90

Cardiac echinococcosis is a rare condition, and its manifestations are protean depending upon its site of infestation. We report a case of hydatid heart disease presenting like an acute cardiac ischemic episode associated with a rise in serum cardiac enzymes secondary to left ventricular free wall dissection caused by ruptured intramyocardial echinococcal cyst. The resultant complex cardiac anatomy was characterized fully by echocardiographic examination.
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PMID:Cardiac echinococcosis causing acute dissection of the left ventricular free wall. 1204 86

Chagas' heart disease, caused by protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, is a common cause of cardiomyopathy in the Americas. Transmission of T. cruzi occurs through Reduviids, the kissing bugs. Less common ways of transmission are blood transfusion, congenital transmission, organ transplantation, laboratory accident, breastfeeding, and oral contamination. Infestation results in cardiac dysautonomia, myocardial apoptosis, and myocardial fibrosis. In acute phase, death is mostly caused by myocarditis and in chronic phase, it is mostly by irreversible cardiomyopathy. A majority of the patients with Chagas' disease remain in the latent phase of disease for 10 to 30 years or even for life. Specific anti-Chagas' therapy with trypanocide drugs is useful in acute phase but the management of chronic Chagas' heart disease is mostly empirical. The mortality during the acute phase of cardiac Chagas is around 5%. Five-year mortality of chronic Chagas' disease with cardiac dysfunction is above 50%. The clinical aspects of the Chagas' heart disease are concisely reviewed.
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PMID:Clinical aspects of the Chagas' heart disease. 1676 34

Delusional infestation is an aspecific psychiatric condition manifested either as a primary psychotic disorder or a secondary disorder induced by a wide range of very different medical conditions. Both primary and secondary delusional infestations seem to respond to typical and atypical antipsychotics. The latter are considered the first-line treatment although the use of second-generation antipsychotics featuring a higher metabolic, cardiovascular, and renal tolerability is preferable in secondary cases, which often occur in patients with multiple, severe medical conditions. We report a case of a 72-year-old patient affected by delusional infestation associated with severe renal failure, metabolic syndrome, hypertensive cardiopathy, and chronic cerebrovascular disease.
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PMID:Delusional infestation in a patient with renal failure, metabolic syndrome, and chronic cerebrovascular disease treated with aripiprazole: a case report. 2217 18

A black-heart disease caused by polydorid infestation is reported for the first time in Kumamoto oyster Crassostrea sikamea Amemiya, 1928 spat in a pond at Beihai city, Guangxi province, China, with a prevalence of 100% and a cumulative mortality rate of 50% within 2 mo. In heavily infected oyster spat, blisters extended toward the center of the inner shell surface, around the adductor muscle scar area to form a large black area occupying approximately 50% of the area of the inner shell surface. Morphological analysis identified the pathogen as Polydora lingshuiensis Ye et al., 2015, which was reconfirmed by comparison of its corresponding 18S rRNA and mitochondrial CO1 gene sequences with those in the GenBank database. The mean abundance of mud blisters was significantly higher in live spat than in dead spat, suggesting that P. lingshuiensis preferentially infests live oyster spat. Additionally, P. lingshuiensis larvae were detected in the inlet near the dam, which suggests that the source of P. lingshuiensis larvae infecting the spat may be larvae entering the ponds through the water current from the sea.
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PMID:First report of black-heart disease in Kumamoto oyster Crassostrea sikamea spat caused by Polydora lingshuiensis in China. 3118 37