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Query: UMLS:C0018801 (heart failure)
 72,216 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

This article reviews the homeostasis of water and salt in normal and pre-eclamptic pregnancy. During pre-eclampsia there is a decrease in circulating plasma volume, which the administration of diuretics reduces still further. There is no proof that diuretics have a beneficial effect on prevention or treatment of toxemia of pregnancy. They should thus be regarded as contraindicated, except in cases of cardiac insufficiency and certain renal diseases.
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PMID:Salt, diuretics and pregnancy. 39 74

Twenty-eight women with severe pre-eclampsia were misdiagnosed and initially thought to have disorders unrelated to pregnancy. Their chief complaints included failing vision, liver or gallbladder dysfunction, renal failure, hemorrhage, seizures, and heart failure. Laboratory studies usually demonstrated thrombocytopenia and high hematocrit values. The development of these symptoms appears to begin with failure of the primigravida to appropriately increase her blood volume commensurate with the increase in size of her uterus. Expanding the severly pre-eclamptic patient's blood volume with intravenous albumin appears to be an effective and appropriate therapy.
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PMID:Severe pre-eclampsia: another great imitator. 94 95

The authors take into consideration specific cases of pregnancy with remarkable oedema caused by cardiac insufficiency, gestosis, pre-eclampsia and eclampsia. They emphasize that in these conditions and in other similar ones use of diuretics cannot be precluded. They report the case of a pregnant woman with severe cardiac insufficiency and considerable oedema observed at the Obstetric Clinical of Rome University. Thanks to diuretic therapy, the pregnancy could be followed through to full term.
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PMID:[The indications and need for diuretics in pregnancy]. 146 89

High blood pressure (BP) complicates approximately 10% of all pregnancies. Hypertension in pregnancy falls into four categories: (1) preeclampsia-eclampsia, (2) chronic hypertension of whatever cause, (3) preeclampsia-eclampsia superimposed to chronic hypertension or renal disease, and (4) transient or late hypertension (gestational hypertension). Preeclampsia, the association of hypertension, proteinuria, and edema, accounts for more than 50% of all the hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and is a major cause of fetal and maternal morbidity and mortality. Unfortunately, distinguishing between preeclampsia and other causes of hypertension on clinical grounds can be difficult because of the lack of specific tests for differential diagnosis. Increased vascular resistance has been claimed as the primary cause of preeclampsia; however, a variable hemodynamic profile with relatively high cardiac outputs, normal filling pressures, and inappropriately high systemic vascular resistances is now reported by most investigators. Imbalance between vasodilator and vasoconstrictor eicosanoids may account for platelet activation and increased responsiveness to pressor peptides. Altered prostacyclin (PGI2) to thromboxane A2 (TxA2) ratio in maternal uteroplacental vascular bed may favor local platelet activation and vasoconstriction contributing to placental insufficiency and fetal distress. Alternatively, recent evidence seems to suggest that fetal umbilical placental circulation may be the site of the primary vascular injury. Whether low-dose aspirin prevents preeclampsia because it inhibits the excessive maternal TxA2 or whether the partial inhibition of fetal TxA2 is also of therapeutic value remains to be established. Treatment of severe hypertension in pregnancy is probably important to prevent cardiac failure or cerebrovascular accidents in the mother. The need for pharmacological therapy of mild to moderate hypertension is still debated, since no formal studies are available to clarify whether pharmacological treatment in such instances effectively reduces maternal or fetal risk. For the treatment of preeclampsia, hydralazine and nifedipine may be used when delivery is not applicable. Labetalol and diazoxide are effective for hypertensive emergencies. Life-threatening hypertension that does not respond to more conventional therapy is an indication for the use of sodium nitroprusside. For chronic hypertension, alpha-methyldopa remains the treatment of choice; if ineffective, hydralazine or beta-blockers are suitable. Effectiveness and safety of other molecules remain elusive.
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PMID:Prevention and treatment of pregnancy-associated hypertension: what have we learned in the last 10 years? 188 20

We report a case of peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) with a literature review. Although PPCM is an uncommon form of cardiomyopathy, it sometimes occurs in women of childbearing age and thus should be considered in a woman who develops heart failure in the peripartum period. The diagnosis is based on a compatible clinical picture and exclusion of other potential causes. Risk factors include being black, over 30 years old, and multiparous, as well as having preeclampsia or hypertension or a multiple birth. The cause is unknown but may be multifactorial. Treatment is similar to that for other dilated cardiomyopathies; steroids and immunosuppressive agents may be useful in some circumstances. Outcome is variable with a long-term survival rate of about 50%. Patients who survive usually have few symptoms.
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PMID:Peripartum cardiomyopathy. 195 46

The authors report the case of a newborn whose mother presented with pre-eclampsia. Intrauterine growth retardation, peripheral edema, ascitis and pleural effusion were present at birth. The authors suggest that placental vascular abnormalities could be responsible for fetal heart failure and edema syndrome.
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PMID:[Pre-eclampsia: a cause of fetal heart failure?]. 236 17

The limiting of the reporting of maternal deaths to those that are included in the criteria of the World Health Organization excludes deaths which yield useful information for further improvements in clinical performance. In this series of 22 maternal deaths, six deaths would have been excluded from reporting: one "direct" obstetric death of pre-eclampsia; one "indirect" death as a result of renal and cardiac failure; two deaths as a result of postnatal depression which led to suicide three and four months postpartum, respectively; and two deaths of cancers, where diagnostic delay may have been a result of the coexistent pregnancy. The importance of primary pulmonary hypertension, cardiomyopathy and psychiatric illness is emphasized. We endorse the recent recommendation of the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) that all maternal deaths that occur more than 42 days after the end of a pregnancy should be assessed for possible relationships with childbirth, and suggest that a time limit of one year would include all deaths that are worthy of scrutiny.
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PMID:When is a maternal death a maternal death? A review of maternal deaths at the Mercy Maternity Hospital, Melbourne. 259 8

Most sacrococcygeal teratomas diagnosed before birth can be managed by planned delivery and postnatal surgery. However, large tumors early in gestation may result in placentomegaly, hydrops, and fetal death and a preeclampsia-like syndrome in the mother. This chain of events may result from high output cardiac failure in the fetus caused by arteriovenous shunting through the tumor. We recently encountered this situation in a fetus at 21 weeks' gestation and performed fetal surgery in an attempt to reverse the process. Excision of the teratoma resulted in reversal of hydrops, diminution of descending aortic flow on Doppler echocardiography, and decrease in placental thickness. Despite these changes, uterine irritability after hysterotomy resulted in labor and delivery of a nonviable premature infant. This case demonstrates that when fetal sacrococcygeal teratoma becomes very large early in gestation, high output cardiac failure can endanger both fetus and mother. In the future, use of Doppler echocardiography may allow appropriate selection of high-risk fetuses. Intervention to prevent arteriovenous shunting through the tumor may offer these fetuses an improved chance for survival.
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PMID:Fetal hydrops and death from sacrococcygeal teratoma: rationale for fetal surgery. 238 65

During a 12-year period, when more than 106,000 women were delivered, 28 women with peripartum heart failure of obscure etiology that initially was diagnosed as peripartum cardiomyopathy were studied. None had obvious underlying cardiac disease or iatrogenic fluid overload, and in all an assiduous search for underlying cardiovascular disease was launched. In 21 of these 28 women, heart failure was attributed to chronic underlying disease (chronic hypertension in 14, forme fruste mitral stenosis in four, and morbid obesity in one) or viral myocarditis. Importantly, these women also had multiple compounding cardiovascular factors--preeclampsia, cesarean section, anemia, and infection--which, when superimposed on those of pregnancy, acted in concert to cause heart failure. In seven women, the cause for cardiomegaly and global hypokinesis was not found, and peripartum cardiomyopathy was diagnosed. Compared with women with explicable causes of peripartum heart failure, these women did poorly: six had persistent cardiomegaly and heart failure, and four of these died within four months to eight years. From these observations, the authors conclude that idiopathic peripartum cardiomyopathy is uncommon, and that in most women with peripartum heart failure of obscure etiology, underlying chronic disease will be identified. Heart failure in these women ensues when the cardiovascular demands of normal pregnancy are amplified further by common pregnancy complications superimposed upon these underlying conditions that cause compensated ventricular hypertrophy.
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PMID:Peripartum heart failure: idiopathic cardiomyopathy or compounding cardiovascular events? 293 58

There were 37 maternal deaths among the 109,221 livebirths registered during the period 1977-86 in Bahrain, Arabian Gulf. The maternal mortality rate was 33.9/100,000 for the 10-year study period; however, disaggregation reveals a decline in this rate from 42.3/100,000 in 1977-81 to 26.9/100,000 in 1982-86. This decline presumably reflects streamlining of the Ministry of Health's maternity services, including a central maternity hospital with all modern facilities that serves as a referral center for all of Bahrain, 2 peripheral hospitals with provision for blood transfusion and surgical deliveries, and 3 maternity units managed by fully qualified midwives. About 80% of deliveries are covered by these maternity services; only 2.5% of deliveries occur in the home. Despite this highly developed maternity care system, 18 of the maternal deaths were due to direct obstetric cause: hemorrhage, 7; pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, 5; abortion septicemia, 2; bowel perforation during cesarean section, 1; thromboembolism, 2; and amniotic fluid embolism, 1. The causes of the 19 indirect maternal deaths were: pulmonary embolism, 5; infection, 7; cardiac failure, 2; cerebrovascular accident, 2; pulmonary hypertension, 1; and uncertain, 2. Of interest is the finding that sickle cell disease was the underlying cause of maternal death in 12 of the 37 deaths in this series. Sickle cell disease was implicated in 3 of the deaths from hemorrhage, all 5 deaths from pulmonary embolism, 2 deaths from septicemia, and the 2 cases of cardiac failure. In this series, 50% of the patients with sickle cell disease had thromboembolic crises following treatment of anemia with packed cell transfusion. Blood transfusion, especially of packed cells, should be given with caution to these patients since it may precipitate vaso-occlusive crisis by increasing blood viscosity. Since sickle cell disease represents a high risk during pregnancy in this Arab population, such patients should have frequent prenatal check-ups and deliver in a well-equipped hospital.
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PMID:Maternal mortality in Bahrain with special reference to sickle cell disease. 321 81


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