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)

Anginal chest pain represents an important cardiac symptom which proved to have a high pretest probability for the existence of potential heart disease. The occurrence of clinically unapparent or atypically exposed myocardial ischemia, as well as discrepancies in effort angina, provide evidence that the release of a nociceptive stimulus does not guarantee pain perception of the same proportion. The connections between sequential nociceptive nerve impulses at different central nervous regions and particularly at non-specified thalamic nuclei allow learning processes in the development of pain perception. The intensity of pain may be altered to a great extent by the anxiety level. The patient might develop habits of vigilance for low threshold abnormal signals generated from the interior of the body; he might, however, also reach a stage of complete pain suppression by centrifugal control of the nociceptive input. Heart pain is probably one of the moderators in a more complex warning system.
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PMID:[Leading symptom of angina pectoris. Psychophysiologic mechanisms of pain perception in chest pain complaints]. 331 12

Cardiac chest pain is accompanied by oxidative stress, which generates alkanes and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These VOCs are excreted in the breath and could potentially provide a rational diagnostic marker of disease. The breath methylated alkane contour (BMAC), a 3-dimensional surface plot of C4-C20 alkanes and monomethylated alkanes, provides a comprehensive set of markers of oxidative stress. In this pilot study, we compared BMACs in patients with unstable angina pectoris and in healthy volunteers. Breath VOCs were analyzed in 30 patients with unstable angina confirmed by coronary angiography and in 38 age-matched healthy volunteers with no known history of heart disease (mean age +/- SD, 62.7 +/- 12.3 years and 62.5 +/- 10.0, not significant). BMACs in both groups were compared to identify the combination of VOCs that provided the best discrimination between the 2 groups. Forward stepwise entry discriminant analysis selected 8 VOCs to construct a predictive model that correctly classified unstable angina patients with sensitivity of 90% (27 of 30) and specificity of 73.7% (28 of 38). On cross-validation, sensitivity was 83.3% (25 of 30) and specificity was 71.1% (27 of 38). We conclude that the breath test distinguished between patients with unstable angina and healthy control subjects.
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PMID:Breath markers of oxidative stress in patients with unstable angina. 1271 76