Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0029713 (immaturity)
 4,335 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Myocardial calcification has been rarely described in premature infants after myocardial infarction and myocarditis with coxsackievirus B1. In adults and older children, metastatic myocardial calcification has been reported in chronic renal failure. We report a case of myocardial calcification in a 680-gm preterm infant after a prolonged course of renal failure complicated by secondary hyperparathyroidism. Subclinical myocardial injury was evidenced by a high serum creatine phosphokinase MB band concentration, which probably provided a susceptible substrate for the deposition of calcium crystals, because the multiplication product of serum calcium and inorganic phosphorus levels transiently exceeded 75 mg x mg/100 ml, indicating serum saturation during the course of secondary hyperparathyroidism. We report this case as an unusual complication of renal immaturity in extremely low birth weight infants and an indication of a relatively intact parathyroid glandular function in them. Hypoxia, myocardial dysfunction, and renal failure are common complications in such infants, and in the presence of renal failure, the serum levels of calcium and inorganic phosphorus should be maintained below the pathologic level to avoid ectopic calcification of the tissues, including the myocardium.
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PMID:Myocardial calcification in an extremely low birth weight infant with chronic renal failure and secondary hyperparathyroidism. 851 2

According to the current paradigm, chronic vascular inflammation plays a central role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. The plaque progression is typically completed with rupture and subsequent acute cardiovascular complications. Previously, the role of adventitial vasa vasorum in atherogenesis was underestimated. However, investigators then revealed that vasa vasorum neovascularization can be observed when no clinical manifestation of atherosclerosis is present. Vasa vasorum is involved in various proatherogenic processes such as intimal accumulation of inflammatory leukocytes, intimal thickening, necrotic core formation, intraplaque haemorrhage, lesion rupture and atherothrombosis. Due to the destabilizing action of the intraplaque microenvironment, lesional vasa vasorum neovessels experience serious defects and abnormalities during development that leads to their immaturity, fragility and leakage. Indeed, intraplaque neovessels are a main cause of intraplaque haemorrhage. Visualization techniques showed that presence of neovascularization/haemorrhage can serve as a good indicator of lesion instability and higher risk of rupture. Vasa vasorum density is a strong predictor of acute cardiovascular events such as sudden death, myocardial infarction and stroke. At present, arterial vasa vasorum neovascularization is under intensive investigation along with development of therapeutic tools focused on the control of formation of vasa vasorum neovessels in order to prevent plaque haemorrhage/rupture and thromboembolism. KEY MESSAGE Neovascularization plays an important role in atherosclerosis, being involved in unstable plaque formation. Presence of neovascularization and haemorrhage indicates plaque instability and risk of rupture. Various imaging techniques are available to study neovascularization.
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PMID:Role of lipids and intraplaque hypoxia in the formation of neovascularization in atherosclerosis. 2879 75