BACKGROUND Clinical guidelines currently suggest that transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) be carried out in all patients with suspected endocarditis, but the use of TTE where there is a low probability of infective endocarditis has a poor diagnostic yield. This screening approach may no longer be appropriate. OBJECTIVE To examine whether clinical criteria might aid decision making with respe...

BACKGROUND The aim of the present study was to evaluate the clinical utility of transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) for screening abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) and to identify important TTE indices associated with AAA in a Japanese population. METHODS We prospectively studied 1912 patients who were referred for TTE. AAA was defined as ≥ 30 mm in size. RESULTS The abdominal aorta was visu...

Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is becoming the choice of hemodynamic assessment tool in many intensive care units. With an ever increasing number of training programs available worldwide, learning the skills to perform TTE is no longer a limiting factor. Instead, the future emphasis will be shifted to teach the users how to recognize measurement errors and artefacts (internal validity), t...

Introduction: Based on current guidelines for the evaluation of aortic stenosis (AS) severity, patients are candidates for valve replacement surgery if they have a valve effective orifice are (EOA) < 1.0 cm, transvalvular pressure gradient (TPG) ≥ 40 mmHg and symptoms [1]. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is widely used to evaluate AS severity. However, there are often discrepancies among t...

BACKGROUND Transthoracic Doppler-echocardiography (TTE) can estimate mean pulmonary arterial pressure (MPAP) and pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP) reliably, and cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is the best modality for non-invasive measurement of cardiac output (CO). We speculated that the combined use of TTE and CMR could provide a feasible method for non-invasive measurement of pulmon...

Helicase-dependent amplification (HDA) is an isothermal in vitro DNA amplification method based upon the coordinated actions of helicases to separate double-stranded DNA and DNA polymerases to synthesize DNA. Previously, a mesophilic form of HDA (mHDA) utilizing the Escherichia coli UvrD helicase, DNA polymerase I Klenow fragment, two accessory proteins, MutL and single-stranded DNA-binding pro...

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can increase cortical excitability of a targeted brain area, which may affect endurance exercise performance. However, optimal electrode placement for tDCS remains unclear. We tested the effect of two different tDCS electrode montages for improving exercise performance. Nine subjects underwent a control (CON), placebo (SHAM) and two different tDCS ...