UMLS:C0018799 - FACTA Search

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Query: UMLS:C0018799 (heart disease)
34,133 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Saline contrast echocardiography was performed in 889 children from June 1976 through February 1988. One-third of these studies were in postoperative patients. A patent foramen ovale was identified by finding right to left shunting on venous contrast injection in 37% of 127 children studied with a structurally normal heart. The incidence of such shunting was greater at younger ages (55% younger than 1 month versus 22% older than 1 month). In most patients with an atrial or ventricular septal defect, some right to left shunting was demonstrable. The technique was useful in distinguishing different forms of atrial septal defect and identifying muscular ventricular septal defects that were difficult to image directly. The technique was used in the catheterization laboratory to aid in the identification of congenital coronary artery fistulas and was diagnostic in two cases of pulmonary arteriovenous malformation. In patients with situs abnormalities, the technique was useful in identifying the systemic venous connections to the atria. Contrast echocardiography was also used in postoperative evaluations. The technique was useful in identifying patch leaks and residual defects after Senning, Mustard and Fontan operations, and after closure of atrial and ventricular septal defects. Most patients were found to have no superior vena cava obstruction by contrast echocardiography after the Senning or Mustard procedure. Contrast echocardiography continues to be a useful technique in the diagnosis of a wide spectrum of congenital heart disease, as well as in the postoperative evaluation of congenital heart surgery.
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PMID:Contrast two-dimensional echocardiography in congenital heart disease: techniques, indications and clinical utility. 291 74

The development of a safe and efficient bioreactor design has remained a challenge for the clinical application of immobilized enzymes. Specifically, the use of immobilized heparinase I has been the target of many studies to make heparin anticoagulation therapy safer for the critically ill patient with kidney failure or heart disease. We have investigated the use of Taylor-Couette flow for a novel type of bioreactor. In a previous study, we showed that the fluidization of agarose immobilized heparinase within Taylor vortices in whole blood can lead to extensive blood damage in the form of cell depletion and hemolysis. Based on these findings, we designed and developed a reactor, referred to as vortex-flow plasmapheretic reactor (VFPR), that incorporated plasmapheresis and fluidization of the agarose in the reactive compartment, separate from the whole-blood path. In the present study, immobilized heparinase I was tested as a means of achieving regional heparinization of a closed circuit. This is a method in which heparin is infused into the extracorporeal circuit predialyzer and neutralized postdialyzer. Saline studies were performed with an immobilized heparinase I-packed bed and with the VFPR. An in vitro feasibility study was performed with the VFPR using human blood. The VFPR achieved heparin conversions of 44 +/- 0.5% and 34 +/- 2% in saline and blood, respectively. In addition, the VFPR caused no blood damage. We report a novel method to achieve fluidization which depended on secondary, circumferencial flow, and was independent of the primary flow through the device.
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PMID:Regional heparinization via simultaneous separation and reaction in a novel Taylor-Couette flow device. 1039 18

The rise in average blood pressure with age seen in Western populations does not occur in isolated traditional nomadic communities. Several factors contribute to the higher blood pressure in the West. Salt is particularly important, however, because its effect on blood pressure is large, the dietary intake by Western populations is high and a large reduction in its intake is realistic. The size of the relationship between salt and blood pressure depends on age and, in trials, the duration of reduction of intake of salt. Results of many of the randomized trials have suggested that reduction of dietary salt exerts only a small effect on average blood pressure; this is because their subjects have been young (average age 26 years) and trials have been of short duration (average 2 weeks). Analysis of observational data concerning various communities indicated that a reduction in dietary intake of sodium of 100 mmol/24 h (3 g of salt, a realistic reduction) lowers systolic blood pressure in subjects aged 50-65 years by 10 mmHg on average. Much evidence corroborates this estimate, including data from the Intersalt study and a randomized controlled trial of reduction of intake of salt by older persons. This reduction in blood pressure would reduce age-specific stroke mortality by an estimated 22% and mortality from heart disease by 16%. Reducing the amount of salt added to manufactured foods is an important public-health target.
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PMID:Salt, blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases. 1078 67

Acute rheumatic fever (ARF), a sequelae of group A Streptococcus (GAS) infection, is the most common cause of preventable childhood heart disease worldwide. The molecular basis of ARF and the subsequent rheumatic heart disease are poorly understood. Serotype M18 GAS strains have been associated for decades with ARF outbreaks in the U.S. As a first step toward gaining new insight into ARF pathogenesis, we sequenced the genome of strain MGAS8232, a serotype M18 organism isolated from a patient with ARF. The genome is a circular chromosome of 1,895,017 bp, and it shares 1.7 Mb of closely related genetic material with strain SF370 (a sequenced serotype M1 strain). Strain MGAS8232 has 178 ORFs absent in SF370. Phages, phage-like elements, and insertion sequences are the major sources of variation between the genomes. The genomes of strain MGAS8232 and SF370 encode many of the same proven or putative virulence factors. Importantly, strain MGAS8232 has genes encoding many additional secreted proteins involved in human-GAS interactions, including streptococcal pyrogenic exotoxin A (scarlet fever toxin) and two uncharacterized pyrogenic exotoxin homologues, all phage-associated. DNA microarray analysis of 36 serotype M18 strains from diverse localities showed that most regions of variation were phages or phage-like elements. Two epidemics of ARF occurring 12 years apart in Salt Lake City, UT, were caused by serotype M18 strains that were genetically identical, or nearly so. Our analysis provides a critical foundation for accelerated research into ARF pathogenesis and a molecular framework to study the plasticity of GAS genomes.
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PMID:Genome sequence and comparative microarray analysis of serotype M18 group A Streptococcus strains associated with acute rheumatic fever outbreaks. 1191 8

The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) has been implicated in the pathophysiology of salt-induced hypertension. Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin II-type 1 receptor blockers, and aldosterone receptor blockers are used to treat hypertension and congestive heart disease. In addition to their blood pressure lowering effects, they appear to protect against myocardial, renal, and vascular damage. In various models of hypertension, generation of reactive oxygen species is increased in the vasculature and that treatment with antioxidants or superoxide dismutase mimetics (e.g., tempol) improves vascular function and structure and reduces blood pressure. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of enalapril, an angiotensin II converting enzyme inhibitor; eplerenone, a selective aldosterone receptor antagonist; and tempol, a superoxide dismutase mimetic, on salt-induced hypertension in Dahl Salt-Sensitive rats. The rats were placed on a high salt (HS; 8%) diet for 3 weeks prior to switching to a normal salt (0.3%) diet for an additional 3 weeks. While on the normal salt (NS) diet, rats were treated with enalapril (30 mg/kg/day in the drinking water), eplerenone (100 mg/kg/day by gavage), tempol (1 mM/day in the drinking water), eplerenone + enalapril, eplerenone + enalapril + tempol, or without drug treatment (control). After 3 weeks on HS diet, systolic blood pressure rose from 127 +/- 7 to 206 +/- 11 mm Hg and remained elevated when switched to NS diet. Subsequently, treatment with eplerenone alone or in combination with enalapril and tempol produced a stepwise reduction in systolic blood pressure reaching -80 mm Hg; however, enalapril and tempol alone produced more modest pressure reduction (approximately -35 mmHg). Plasma levels of prostacyclin and nitric oxide were elevated in rats treated with enalapril and eplerenone alone or in combination. Enalapril and eplerenone alone and in combination reduced heart and kidney levels of angiotensin II and aldosterone when compared with control. Renal and heart levels of reduced glutathione were diminished by eplerenone alone; however, enalapril tended to attenuate the effect of eplerenone on reduced glutathione levels in the heart. The findings from this study suggest that eplerenone reduces salt-induced hypertension by increasing endothelium-derived relaxing factors, inhibiting RAAS components and oxidative stress. (353words).
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PMID:Effects of enalapril, tempol, and eplerenone on salt-induced hypertension in dahl salt-sensitive rats. 1654 38

Salt as a commodity to preserve and flavor food and to treat ailments has been in existence for hundreds of years. Sodium (salt) restriction to treat hypertension and fluid retention has been practiced for several decades. More recently, evidence-based best practice guidelines have been developed and published on websites to guide medical and healthcare practitioners to treat patients with hypertension, heart disease, chronic kidney disease, and other sodium-sensitive conditions. As the consequences of hypertension affect many people around the world, the World Health Organization is involved in helping to prevent the development of hypertensive risk factors by advocating a global reduction in salt and a healthy lifestyle. Many governments have or are in the process of adapting these recommendations for local implementation. This paper provides information about existing guidelines for healthy individuals and patients with chronic kidney disease and practical aspects to achieve a lifelong change in dietary habits.
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PMID:Salt restriction and practical aspects to improve compliance. 1912 74

We conducted a retrospective study of a set of previously published electrocardiographic data to investigate the possible direct association between levels of particulate air pollution and changes in ventricular repolarization -- the cardiac electrophysiologic process that manifests itself as the T wave* of the electrocardiogram (ECG) and that is definitively linked to and responsible for increased arrhythmogenesis. The published findings from this data set demonstrated a clear cardiac effect, namely, a reduction in heart rate variability (HRV) parameter values with increased levels of particulate air pollution (Pope et al. 2004), suggesting possible arrhythmogenic effects. Given this positive finding and the well-established sensitivity of cardiac repolarization to physiologic, pharmacologic, and neurologic interventions, and in light of emerging novel tools for assessing repolarization, we hypothesized that high levels of particulate air pollution would alter repolarization independent of changes in heart rate and, consequently, would increase arrhythmogenic risk. The likely mechanism of any deleterious effects on repolarization would be alteration of sodium, calcium, and potassium channels. The channel's structure, function, and kinetics are responsible for generating the cellular action potentials, which, when summed over the entire heart, result in the waves recorded by the ECG. A positive finding would provide evidence that increased levels of air pollution may be directly linked to increases in arrhythmogenic risk and, potentially, sudden cardiac death. The study population consisted of 88 nonsmoking, elderly subjects in whom multiple, continuous, 24-hour, 2-channel ECG recordings were collected, along with blood samples to evaluate inflammatory mechanisms (not pursued in the current study). The concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5, particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter < or = 2.5 microm) in daily samples was measured or estimated and used to trigger recording sessions for days considered to have "low" or "high" PM2.5 concentrations. Each subject participated in one to five recordings over the study period, and all subjects lived within the greater Salt Lake Valley in Utah. We reanalyzed these recordings using custom software that incorporated a magnitude function of the ECG -- the root mean square of all recorded leads (RMS ECG) -- to determine the following for each beat in the 24-hour recording: cycle length (RR); RR dispersion; the interval between the RMS R- and T-wave peaks (RT), a robust estimate of mean duration of ventricular action potential; the width of the RMS T wave (TW), a robust estimate of the range of repolarization times that relates to repolarization dispersion and arrhythmogenesis; the RMS QT interval (QT) measured from the QRS onset to T-wave offset of the RMS ECG; and the regression slopes of RT versus RR, QT versus RR, and TW versus RR, which provide estimates of so-called repolarization restitution, or rate dependency of repolarization, which also is associated with arrhythmogenesis. The study findings did not support the original hypothesis and demonstrated a lack of sensitivity of repolarization to changes in PM2.5 concentrations. None of the repolarization variables showed a statistically significant change between days of low and high PM2.5 concentrations, although we observed statistically significant differences for some variables using fixed-effects modeling. However, we did find a significant decrease in the standard deviation of cycle length, in concert with findings in the original study that showed a decrease in HRV parameter values. There was a slight but statistically insignificant increase in the width of the TW between recordings from days of low and days of high PM2.5, suggesting that, in a setting of prolonged exposure to high levels of PM, the original hypothesis might be supported. We conclude that in this study the short-term (day-today) differences in air pollution, specifically PM2.5 concentration, did not affect ventricular repolarization. A likely explanation for the negative result is that the day-today variability of repolarization (arising from autonomic influences, activity, and heart rate) far outweighs the changes that might be induced by air pollution, if any. In addition, the study may have been underpowered. The findings do not refute the possibility of the deleterious repolarization effects of PM, particularly over prolonged periods of exposure, but suggest the need for exposure studies that provide better controls. In light of recent studies, it is also likely that in an at-risk population -- for example, patients compromised with heart disease -- repolarization changes may be more apparent.
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PMID:Air pollution effects on ventricular repolarization. 1957 27

The 57th Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, held in Salt Lake City, UT, USA, included topics covering new developments in imaging agents and radiopharmaceutical therapies in the field of nuclear medicine. This conference report highlights selected presentations related to imaging of the brain, the prediction of heart disease, and the detection and treatment of various cancers. Investigational drugs discussed include TF-2 plus [68Ga]IMP-288 and TF-2 plus [111In]IMP-288 (both Immunomedics Inc), [11C]PBR-170 (Royal Prince Alfred Hospital/Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organization), [11C]LY-2795050 (Eli Lilly & Co), yttrium (90Y) clivatuzumab tetraxetan (Garden State Cancer Center/Immunomedics Inc), [18F]LMI-1195 (Lantheus Medical Imaging Inc), fluciclovine (18F) (GE Healthcare/Nihon Medi-Physics Co Ltd), [99mTc]MIP-1340 and [99mTc]MIP-1407 (both Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals Inc).
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PMID:Society of Nuclear Medicine--57th annual meeting. 2072 16

This article outlines the rationale for reducing dietary salt and some of the Pan American Health Organization actions to facilitate reductions in dietary salt in the Americas. Excessive dietary salt (sodium chloride and other sodium salts) is a major cause of increased blood pressure, which increases risk for stroke, heart disease, and kidney disease. Reduction in salt intake is beneficial for people with hypertension and those with normal blood pressure. The World Health Organization recommends a population salt intake of less than 5 grams/person/day with a Pan American Health Organization expert group recommendation that this be achieved by 2020 in the Americas. In general, the consumption of salt is more than 6 grams/day by age 5 years, with consumption of salt averaging between 9 and 12 grams per day in many countries. Recent salt intake estimates from Brazil (11 grams of salt/day), Argentina (12 grams of salt/day), Chile (9 grams of salt/day) and the United States (8.7 grams of salt/day) confirm that high salt intakes are prevalent in Americas. Sources of dietary salt vary, from 75% of it coming from processed food in developed countries, to 70% coming from discretionary salt added in cooking or at the table in parts of Brazil. The Pan American Health Organization has launched a regionwide initiative called the ?Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Through Dietary Salt Reduction,? led by an expert working group. Working closely with countries, the expert group developed resources to aid policy development through five subgroups: (a) addressing industry engagement and product reformulation; (b) advocacy and communication; (c) surveillance of salt intake, sources of salt in the diet, and knowledge and opinions on salt and health; (d) salt fortification with iodine; and (e) national-level health economic studies on salt reduction.
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PMID:Reducing salt intake in the Americas: Pan American Health Organization actions. 2191 12

Hypertension is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Individuals with hypertension are at an increased risk for stroke, heart disease and kidney failure. Essential hypertension results from a combination of genetic and lifestyle factors. One such lifestyle factor is diet, and its role in the control of blood pressure has come under much scrutiny. Just as increased salt and sugar are known to elevate blood pressure, other dietary factors may have antihypertensive effects. Studies including the Optimal Macronutrient Intake to Prevent Heart Disease (OmniHeart) study, Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT), International Study of Salt and Blood Pressure (INTERSALT) and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) study have demonstrated an inverse relationship between dietary protein and blood pressure. One component of dietary protein that may partially account for its antihypertensive effect is the nonessential amino acid cysteine. Studies in hypertensive humans and animal models of hypertension have shown that N-acetylcysteine, a stable cysteine analogue, lowers blood pressure, which substantiates this idea. Cysteine may exert its antihypertensive effects directly or through its storage form, glutathione, by decreasing oxidative stress, improving insulin resistance and glucose metabolism, lowering advanced glycation end products, and modulating levels of nitric oxide and other vasoactive molecules. Therefore, adopting a balanced diet containing cysteine-rich proteins may be a beneficial lifestyle choice for individuals with hypertension. An example of such a diet is the DASH diet, which is low in salt and saturated fat; includes whole grains, poultry, fish and nuts; and is rich in vegetables, fruits and low-fat dairy products.
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PMID:The antihypertensive effect of cysteine. 2247 70

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