International journal of cardiology
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Adaptive servo-ventilation in heart failure patients with sleep apnea: a real world study.
Congestive heart failure (CHF) patients often present with obstructive and central sleep apnea occurring concurrently within the same night. This study assessed the efficacy of, and improvements associated with, the use of adaptive servo-ventilation (ASV) in CHF patients with all types of sleep apnea. We hypothesized that ASV would be effective at reducing sleep apnea and improving both cardiac status and quality of life. ⋯ ASV effectively reduces all types of sleep apnea. Six months of use is associated with improvement in LVEF and aspects of quality of life.
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Most patients with Takotsubo cardiomyopathy show a favorable outcome. Although several complications have been reported, the frequency of thromboembolism has not been clarified. ⋯ This study indicates that thromboembolism is a common complication in the acute phase of Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, and anticoagulation therapy should be performed in all patients until wall motion abnormalities improve. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy should be considered one of the important causes of cardioembolic stroke.
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Letter Case Reports
Anomalous origin of the left anterior descending artery from the main pulmonary artery with multi-detector row computed tomography coronary angiography.
Anomalous origin of the left anterior descending artery from the main pulmonary artery is a rare congenital anomaly of the coronary artery. We present a case report of a 31-year-old male patient with anomalous origin of the left anterior descending artery from the main pulmonary artery that was diagnosed by multi-detector row computed tomography coronary angiography and correlated with conventional angiography. The results indicate that multi-detector row computed tomography plays an important role in the diagnosis of some rare coronary anomalies that conventional angiography cannot clarify.
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Comment Letter
Chill therapy in the patients with resuscitated cardiac arrest: a new weapon in the battle against anoxic brain injury.
Improved cooling technologies (such as newer intravascular cooling devices) may result in earlier attainment of target temperature and even more robust clinical benefits in the management of the survivors of cardiac arrest. Earlier cooling may also be facilitated by the introduction of cooled saline infusions in the emergency room setting, prior to induction of cooling in the intensive care unit. However, there is a need for studies of adjunctive therapies to minimize the risk of medical complications associated with hypothermia, the most serious of which is infection. We strongly believe that larger confirmatory studies might encourage more widespread adoption of therapeutic hypothermia for survivors of cardiac arrest and further studies are also needed to evaluate the utility of this procedure for more expanded indications, including asystole, pulseless electrical activity, and in-hospital arrest in patients without significant comorbidity.
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Meta Analysis
Levosimendan for the treatment of acute severe heart failure: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials.
The objective of this study was to critically review the literature to evaluate whether levosimendan compared to standard therapy, in patients with acute severe heart failure, is associated with improved clinical outcomes. ⋯ Levosimendan improved haemodynamic parameters when compared with placebo, without showing evidence of survival benefit. Levosimendan improved both haemodynamics and survival when compared with dobutamine.