OBJECTIVE To assess perfusion patterns on a dual-energy pulmonary CT angiography (DECTA) of pulmonary hypertension (PHT) with variable causes and to assess whether the extent of perfusion defect can be used in the severity assessment of PHT. MATERIALS AND METHODS Between March 2007 and February 2011, DECTA scans of 62 consecutive patients (24 men, 38 women; mean age, 58.5 ± 17.3 [standard dev...

UNLABELLED Nonselective β-blockers are useful to prevent bleeding in patients with cirrhosis and large varices but not to prevent the development of varices in those with compensated cirrhosis and portal hypertension (PHT). This suggests that the evolutionary stage of PHT may influence the response to β-blockers. To characterize the hemodynamic profile of each stage of PHT in compensated cirrho...

The lungs are the only organs that receive the entire cardiac output which is delivered at a mean resting pulmonary arterial pressure of 15 mm Hg. The capacitance pulmonary arteries are larger in calibre and have thinner walls than their systemic counterparts. Moreover, the pulmonary circulation possesses little resting vascular tone and has a large reserve for recruitment of vascular segments ...

Sixty-eight patients with convulsive status epilepticus (SE) were randomly assigned to two groups to study the efficacy of sodium valproate (VPA) and phenytoin (PHT). Seizures were aborted in 66% in the VPA group and 42% in the PHT group. As a second choice in refractory patients, VPA was effective in 79% and PHT was effective in 25%. The side effects in the two groups did not differ. Sodium va...

Pulmonary hypertension (PHT) occurs in approximately 30% of adult patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) and is a risk factor for early death. Hypercoagulability has been linked to PHT in general and pulmonary artery thrombosis contributes to PHT progression regardless of its cause. Sickle cell patients are characterized by a hypercoagulable state and both autopsy and imaging studies in sickle...

Thyroidal pain is usually due to subacute thyroiditis (SAT). In more severe forms prednisone doses up to 40 mg daily for 2-3 weeks are recommended. Recurrences occur rarely and restoration of steroid treatment cures the disease. Rarely, patients with Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) have thyroidal pain (painful HT, PHT). Differently from SAT, occasional PHT patients showed no benefit from medical t...

The present study examines the behavioral and psychophysiological effects of phenytoin (PHT) in individuals who display impulsive-aggressive outbursts. In a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover design, individuals meeting previously established criteria for impulsive aggression were administered PHT and placebo during separate 6-week conditions. The efficacy measures used were the Overt Ag...

Informative and scalable trust mechanisms that are robust to manipulation by strategic agents are a critical component of multi-agent systems. While the global hitting time mechanism (GHT) introduced by Hopcroft and Sheldon [9] is more robust to manipulation than PageRank, strategic agents can still benefit significantly under GHT by performing sybil attacks. In this paper, we introduce the per...

AIMS Persistent, echocardiography-assessed right ventricle dysfunction (RVD) and/or pulmonary hypertension (PHT) are relatively frequent findings after an acute pulmonary embolism (PE). It has been suggested that echocardiography might predict long-term adverse events. Our objectives were to evaluate the prognostic value of RVD or isolated PHT 6 months after an acute PE with regard to all-cause...

The ability of arterial smooth muscle to respond to vasoconstrictor stimuli is reduced in chronic portal hypertension (PHT). Additional evidence supports the existence of a postreceptor defect in vascular smooth muscle excitation contraction coupling. However, the nature of this defect is unclear. Recent studies have shown that vasoconstrictor stimuli induce actin polymerization in smooth muscl...